Agricultural input subsidies often have implicit or explicit political economy objectives. Using panel data from Zambia, this article empirically tests whether election outcomes affect targeting of subsidized fertilizer and whether fertilizer subsidies win votes. Results suggest that the Zambian...

The fact that trade, and especially agricultural trade, remains far from free is puzzling, since the superiority of free trade receives overwhelming support among economists (Gawande and Krishna, 2003; Rodrik, 1994). International trade scholars have devoted significant resources to forecasting the...

Global food commodity price inflation beginning in 2006 and continuing through mid-2008 became a priority concern for global consumers, producers and policy-makers alike. In response, many governments across the world implemented policies targeting high food commodity prices in their domestic...

Based on survey data on Bulgarian and Hungarian crop and dairy farms, a double-peaked distribution of technical efficiency is observed. Several factors explain differences in efficiency. Human capital matters not only through age and education, but also through gender as farms with a higher...

We consider a political economy where government cares about risk-averse farmers’ loss of income and yet incurs political cost if it provides monetary support to farmers. Government evaluates three options: 1) ex-post disaster aid; 2) ex-ante insurance option with perfect information; 3)...