Pioneered by Bernard et al. (1995) and Melitz (2003), recent advances in the international economics literature emphasizing the role of firm-level productivity differences has shed new light on the dynamics of international trade. Despite gaining significant traction in the international economics literature, firm-level analysis in the agricultural economics literature is comparatively rare, particularly in an emerging, industrialized economy such as China. This dissertation consists of three essays that provide firm-level analysis on Chinese agricultural trade since China's accession to the world trade organization (WTO). In the first essay, I segment by ownership structure to examine the role of different firm types in Chinese agricultural trade and find that domestic, private firms dominate Chinese agricultural trade and contribute 60%, or $96 billion, of the agricultural trade growth over the 2000-2016 period. Furthermore, the results show that although the economic weight of the state sector is declining, the share of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in strategically important commodities, such as wheat, corn, and rice imports are consistently high. In the second essay, I develop an empirical strategy to break down China's agricultural import trade growth. The findings reveal that China's agricultural import growth is highly concentrated among a small group of firms, where the top 10% of Chinese agricultural importers account for nearly 90% of the country's agricultural imports. I also find evidence of significant agri-food product importer turnover as over 40% of new firms entering China's agricultural import market exited after just 1.7 years during our sample period. In the last essay, I evaluate the efficiency of a specific Chinese non-tariff measure (NTM), the tariff rate quota (TRQ), using Chinese firm-level data. Two key findings emerge from this analysis. First, unlike results from country-level analyses, I find that SOEs import quantities are more sensitive to price changes. Additionally, more SOEs import grains when the price differential between domestic and world markets increases. Second, I fail to find any causal difference in the SOE share of TRQ imports before and after the two previously mentioned policy events were implemented to promote the market orientation of Chinese grain imports / PHD

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Andrew P. Barkley / The impact of agricultural trade liberalization on welfare is a major concern to the Government of Morocco. Several agricultural sectors and sub-sectors that are suffering from severe inefficiencies have been protected by the Government mainly through prohibitive import tariffs as a mean to support the income of domestic producers. Although the rhetoric in Morocco is of trade liberalization, the farm sector, with few exceptions, has largely escaped the general tendency. The livestock sector in general and the bovine meat production in particular figure among the most protected goods in the country. Bovine meat imports are imposed a prohibitive tariff rate of 254 percent. In addition, several technical barriers to trade exist in the form of rigid sanitary regulations. It is strategically important for Morocco's trade partners and those that are planning to negotiate different forms of trade agreements to understand the economic argument behind Moroccan protectionist policy in agriculture. The bovine meat market in Morocco is of high interest to major exporters given the growing size in domestic and tourist populations, the high domestic prices, as well as the increase in consumer awareness. Given its good sanitary status, Australia is a strong candidate for negotiating an agreement that will include bovine meat within a general agricultural package. The objective of this study is to evaluate economic evidence and determine whether or not opening up trade of bovine meat will have a net positive impact on welfare. Such evidence can become a strong argument in the hands of trade negotiators for major exporting nations such as Australia. This study uses data from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the Ministry of Agriculture of Morocco and Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) to construct a partial equilibrium model for the bovine meat market. The model simulates different trade policies: closed market, free trade, quota and TRQ. Using the theory of comparative advantage and the concepts of consumer and producer surpluses, gains and losses are assessed and the net impact on welfare is evaluated. The empirical analysis suggests that total free trade in the bovine meat market results in the highest gain in social welfare when compared to protectionism (USD 246.62 million), followed by the TRQ (USD 206.11 million) and quota policy (USD 4.92 million). As hypothesized, the protectionist policy results in large losses in consumers' surplus. The results of the analysis converge with the economic theory and are compelling evidence for the benefits brought by openness in the bovine meat trade.