Trade Policy’s Pollution Bias UC-Berkley economist Joseph Shapiro analyzed (see NBER Working Paper No. 26845) tariff and nontariff barriers on global imports based on the relative CO2 emissions involved with the products. He found that “dirtier” products face lower import barriers than cleaner, downstream products. This creates an effective subsidy to pollute that Shapiro calculates is worth several hundred billion dollars. The reason for this divergence is because industries lobby for lower tariffs on inputs whereas consumers are not organized to lobby for the contrary policy. Separately, the UK thinks it has a brilliant idea for dealing with the lower cost of food production in the U.S. and a bilateral trade agre...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.