Chapter 8.C Agricultural Production Targeting

Agricultural production targeting is a procedure applied to certain I-O tables before the main data construction phase. Except for its agricultural orientation, it is unrelated to the agricultural I-O data disaggregation discussed in sub-chapters 8.A and 8.B of this chapter. Rather, it arises from concerns that arose with the GTAP 5 Data Base, that in the data for European Union (EU) member countries there were considerable inaccuracies in levels and international distribution of agricultural production, and, consequently, in the budgetary cost of assistance. This led to problems in analysis of EU agricultural reform. Investigation revealed that these inaccuracies largely reflected discrepancies between the representation of agriculture in the contributed I-O tables for EU member countries (van Leeuwen, 2002) and EUROSTAT production data relied upon by EU stakeholders. These arose partly from differences in reference years (the I-O data being older), but more from basic data differences. In response, a special version of the GTAP Data Base was prepared for exclusive use of GTAP Consortium members, in which the agricultural production levels in EU member countries were revised. The revisions were made not within the data base construction procedure itself bu