The 1980s and first half of the 1990s were a very active period in the field of political economy of agricultural protection. While the past decade has witnessed a slowdown in this area, there have been very important developments on political economy in other parts of the economics profession....

This paper summarizes a new database that sheds light on the impact of trade-related policy developments over the past half century on distortions to agricultural incentives and thus also to consumer prices for food in 75 countries spanning the per capita income spectrum. Price-support policies...

In this paper, we examine the political economy drivers of the variation in agricultural protection, both across countries and within countries over time. The paper starts by listing the key insights provided by both the theoretical and empirical literature on the political economy of trade...

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/25/09.

This paper focuses on recent theoretical developments in political economy and what role they might play in explaining and reforming individual country and global distortions in food and agricultural markets. Four groups of forces are isolated: political governance structures emphasizing the...

During the 1960s and 1970s most developing countries imposed anti-agricultural policies, while many high-income countries restricted agricultural imports and subsidized their farmers. Both sets of policies inhibited economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries, while doing...

This paper describes agricultural policy choices and tests some predictions of political economy theories. It begins with three broad stylized facts: governments tend to tax agriculture in poorer countries, and subsidize it in richer ones, tax both imports and exports more than nontradables, and...

Britain – contrary to received wisdom – was not a free trader for most of the 1800s and, despite repeal of the Corn Laws, continued to have higher tariffs than the French until the last quarter of the century War with Louis XIV from 1689 led to the end of all trade between Britain and France...

The paper analyzes the political and institutional factors which are behind the dramatic changes in distortions to agricultural incentives in the transition countries in East Asia (China and Vietnam), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, etc), the rest of the former Soviet Union, and in...

This paper focuses on the political economy of U.S. farm policy since the Uruguay Round trade negotiations concluded in 1994 and established the WTO. The continued ability of the powerful farm lobby in the United States to elicit support in the political arena is evident from this analysis. Yet...