ABSTRACT
According to standard economic theory and modelling, liberalizing agriculture will result in important welfare gains. Because of price volatility, an alternative model, based in general disequilibrium in the Wicksellian tradition, provides much less optimistic conclusions, actually supported by the recent evolution of the world agricultural system,
IntroductionI. What can be Expected from the Liberalization of Agricultural Trade?: Ricardo's Parable; Risk Aversion; The Law of Large Numbers and Market StabilizationII. Theoretical Criticism of Agricultural Liberalism: Galiani; The Notion of Demand Elasticity; Algebraic Expressions of the Cobweb TheoremIII. The Test of FactsIV. Designing an Economic Model for International Trade: The CES Function; "First-order Conditions"; The LES Function and Consumer Behavior; The GTAP DatabaseV. How can Theory and History be Introduced in a Standard Model?: The Markowitz ModelVI. A Choice of ResultsVII. Could We Do Better?: The Algebra of Futures MarketsVIII. Recent DevelopmentsConclusion
