BRICS Differ In the adjacent article on BRICS Dominate, it is noted how the five key countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting this week in South Africa stand out in terms of global agriculture. However, they are also different from a policy standpoint. Researchers at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland note some other differences about the BRICS countries: They make heavier use of subsidies for local business enterprises. Instead of export bans, they tend to use more opaque measures such as licensing restrictions and export taxes and tax-based export incentives.  On average, they use fewer import tariffs, quotas, and licenses. It is the opaqueness, and autocratic approaches to policy by some major...

TAGS – Europe, Macroeconomics