Agricultural comparative advantage and government policy interventions

International trade patterns are often explained by comparative advantage w hich is frequently thought to depend on variations in national factor endow ments. Government intervention in agricultural markets may also have an imp act on trade patterns. This study explores the relation between factor endo wments and agricultural trade patterns and examines the impact of agricultu ral and environmental policies on trade flows. Measures of national endowme nts of capital, labour land and energy reserves are computed for a sample o f 40 countries and used to estimate Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek equations with ne t trade in several agricultural commodities as the dependent variable Varia bles measuring agricultural policy and environmental regulations are added to the equations and tested for significance. The variables representing go vernment intervention do not contribute to the explanation of trade pattern s while national factor endowments do account for much of the variation in trade patterns of grains, oilseeds, cotton, and to a lesser extent, meat pr oducts and an aggregate of all agricultural goods Commodities such as sugar ; tropical products and fruits and vegetables do not appear to be well expl ained by factor endowments.