Meet Megan Provost (last updated 2008)
Megan graduated with a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Oklahoma State University in 2003. Like many students, she found lectures on elasticities boring, and never thought she would use them in her career. Wrong! After graduating, Megan took a job with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) in Washington, D.C. as the trade economist. And what does she spend a large part of her job doing? Developing and using general equilibrium displacement models! The U.S. is continually striking trade agreements with individual countries, with groups of countries or through the World Trade Organization. These trade agreements, among other things, lower the tariffs (i.e. taxes) placed on agricultural imports. Before the U.S. commits to any change in policy, however, they seek to estimate the economic impact of that change. This is where AFBF and Megan Provost enters. Megan regularly considers policy proposals, runs them through her equilibrium displacement model and writes reports for trade negotiators and policy makers on the economic impact. Like the models used in this textbook, they rely extensively on elasticities.
