Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / John M. Crespi / The EU is one of the world’s biggest importers of bananas and, as such, import policies enforced by this trade union are likely to have a great impact on major producers of bananas. Aiming to protect communitarian producers and exporters from selected ex-colonies of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific and to honor previous agreements, the EU unified its import policy for bananas in 1993. This policy, known as the Common Market Organization for Bananas, generated one of the most controversial trade disputes in history. After several modifications of the original regime, in January 2006, the EU changed its import regime to satisfy a World Trade Organization mandate and to honor an agreement signed with the United States in 2000. This dissertation reviews the history of the trade disputes in the EU banana market and analyzes the effects that the new import regime will have on major suppliers. To do this, a theoretically-consistent demand system is estimated and then the calculated parameters are used to model the effects of the tariff-only import system in the EU banana market. Based on the results, producers surplus are estimated and Monte Carlo simulations are performed to do a sensitivity analysis of the results. In the demand estimation component, the EU market is modeled as a system containing four major suppliers using the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS). This estimation fills an important gap in literature regarding the lack of well-estimated demand elasticities of bananas in the EU. The EU banana market is then modeled based on a equilibrium displacement model framework. Results of this analysis are then used to calculate point estimates of producer surplus changes as a measure of the impact of the new import policy on banana suppliers. Monte Carlo simulations are based on parameter estimates obtained from the AIDS model. These simulations allowed not only sensitivity analysis but also probabilistic inferences about the statistical significance of the estimates obtained in the previous components. Results indicate that the hypothesis that the new import regime will not affect the major suppliers of the EU banana market cannot be rejected. This might indicate that the policy enforced by the Common Market Organization for Bananas and the current tariff-only import regime are statistically equivalent. In other words, the EU expertly enacted a tariff level that will leave much as status quo.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the welfare effects of the European Banana Market Policy. Until 1993, EU countries had a wide variety of separate national policies, ranging from free trade (e.g. Germany) to heavily regulated markets (e.g. Spain, France). On 1 July 1993, the EU's common organization of the market in bananas came into force and established a combined quota-tariff regime with preferential access for ACP and EU suppliers. We estimate the resulting changes in the welfare of consumers, traders and the national governments for all member states of the European Union to identify the winners and losers of this change in the external trade policy. Over the period 1993 to 1998, the cumulated aggregate welfare loss of the consumers amounted to ECU 1408 mill, whereas the international banana traders gained ECU 558 mill. on the EU market. The welfare effect on the national budgets of the EU member states was also positive (ECU 783 mill.) due to higher tariff income. The resulting total deadweight loss of the European Union amounted to ECU 68 mill. As regards the distribution of the welfare effects, the former free trade countries lost welfare, whereas the formerly severely regulated countries gained. In absolute terms the biggest loser of the regime shift is Germany, the biggest winner is France. (authors' abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut