In the case of U. S. agricultural policy, this paper shows how governmental intervention can be formally incorporated in a conditional-vector-error-correcting model. From the resulting theoretical framework and empirical analysis, formal hypotheses are tested regarding both forward and backward...

Policy preference functions (PPFs) explicate trade-offs among various political economic groups concerned with the policy process. Estimation methods for PPFs are detailed. The stochastic nature of PPF parameters is discussed and a method for developing standard errors is introduced. Hypothesis...