This empirical study uses 100 years of annual data on II agricultural commodities from Belgium to measure the impact of structural changes coinciding with economic development and changes in political institutions on agricultural protection. The analysis shows that changes in agricultural...

The paper tests a political economy theory of simultaneous government decision-making on income redistribution through commodity policies and on public research investment in agriculture. We use data from 37 countries on agricultural protection and public agricultural research expenditures...

Mass media plays a crucial role in information distribution and thus in the political market and public policy making. Theory predicts that information provided by mass media reflects the media’s incentives to provide news to different types of groups in society, and affects these groups’...

It is now fifteen years ago that the Berlin Wall fell, the start of a vast set of changes throughout the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Reforms in the Communist world had started earlier further east: first in China in the late 1970s and in Vietnam in the mid 1980s. The...

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....

New research on the political economy of policy-induced distortions to incentives for optimal resource use in agriculture and insights from the study of the dramatic reforms in former state-controlled economy has led to enhanced insights on the role of governance structures on policy making in...

Important changes took place in agricultural policies in Europe in the 19th and 20th century. The dramatic nature of the changes are illustrated by two years, a century apart: 1860 and 1960. In the 1860s European nations agree on a series of trade agreements which spread free trade across the...

The rise of a western-style middle class in many successful emerging economies like China currently is inducing deep structural changes on agricultural world markets and within the global agri-food business. As a result of both higher incomes and concerns over product safety and quality the...