Revolution that began in Asia in the 1960s is a previous case in point, whereby producers and consumers shared the benefits in terms of higher farm profits and lower consumer prices for cereals. A prospective case in point is the possibility of breeding crop varieties that are not only less-costly to grow but are ‘nutriceuticals’ in the sense they contain vitamin and mineral supplements. The most promising is so-called ‘golden rice’. Consumers in many of poor countries suffer from chronic vitamin A deficiency that can lead to blindness, weakened immune systems, and increased morbidity and mortality for children and pregnant and lactating women. Golden rice has been genetically engineered to contain a higher level of beta-carotene in the endosperm of the grain and thereby provide a vitamin A supplement. By being cheaper and/or more nutritionally beneficial, it would improve the health of poor people and thereby also boost their labor productivity. Anderson, Jackson and Nielsen (2005) estimate that the latter economic benefit from this new technology could be as much as ten times greater than just the traditional benefits of lower production costs – not to mention that poor people would live longer and healthier lives. This new technology has yet to be adopted, however, because the European Union and some other countries will not import food from countries that may contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – even though there is no evidence that GM foods are a danger to human health (see, e.g., King 2003). The cost of that trade barrier to developing countries – which is not included in the estimates in Table 1 – has been very considerable (Anderson and Jackson 2005).

## **_Social aspects of migration_**

Notwithstanding the economic gains that could result from more international migration, and the desire by millions more people in developing countries to migrate (as witnessed by the huge queues of applicants in embassies, the rise in illegal immigration, the increase in asylum seekers, and the high fees paid by recruiters and people smugglers), governments of rich countries are reluctant to open up greatly. Migration has much broader implications for society than opening up to trade in products or financial capital. While many of those implications are positive for both sending and receiving countries, others are perceived as negative. The implications of increased diversity in the destination countries are especially complex and virtually impossibly to include adequately in an economic benefit/cost calculus. Cooperation between the two sets of countries can ease some of the concerns though, especially if they result in agreements that provide for temporary migration and the enforcement of laws that protect migrants from exploitation and abuse.

# **Caveats**

Measuring both the benefits and the costs of liberalizing subsidies and barriers to trade and migration is still an inexact science, despite the huge amount of progress that has been made over the past two decades in global CGE modelling.<sup>35</sup> We have tried to accommodate shortcomings by providing a range of estimates and by erring on the conservative side in the above analysis. Nonetheless it is worth reviewing the key areas where analytical improvements are still needed. On the cost side, more empirical research on the real costs of adjustments to trade policy changes and of

> 35 Parts of this section draw on the survey by Francois and Martin (2007).

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