摘要：Achieving substantial agricultural trade liberalization has proven elusive in the Doha Round. This paper examines policy reforms the United States might adopt to facilitate progress. The focus is on whether decoupling can be made more convincing through a long-term buyout that would end farm subsidies. Buyouts have not been feasible in the past but recent reforms for several specialty crops provide evidence of what might be done and the conditions under which it occurs. Although the political-economy conditions may not be conducive to such a buyout yet, estimates are provided of the potential cost of a buyout of the main U.S. farm support subsidies of direct fixed and counter-cyclical payments.
