Promotion of the Agricultural Sector and Political Power in Austria.

In most industrialized countries farmers as a small and well-organized group are able to influence government decisions to get rent-creating proposals enacted. Two different views are presented to explain why: the Chicagoan view ("Efficient Redistribution Hypothesis") and the Virginian view (inefficient outcome of political bargaining). A vertically structured empirical model of the Austrian farm sector is employed to test both hypotheses. Quantitative results of the welfare transfers from consumers/taxpayers to farmers and agribusiness firms are derived and the political weights of these groups are presented. Copyright 2000 by Kluwer Academic Publishers