During the negotiations on the Australia–US free trade agreement (AUSFTA), the US dairy industry vigorously opposed opening the US market to imports of Australian dairy products on the grounds that the US industry would be devastated. Subsequently, the agreement signed in February 2004 made an...

Faced with the task of reorganizing the largest agricultural research system in the world, officials in China are developing a strategy for reform. This paper investigates economies of scale and scope and other potential sources of improvements in the economic efficiency of crop breeding, an...

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the cornerstone of the U.S. federal income and food safety net policy. The FSP has subsidized the food budget for millions of American households for over forty years, spending more than $60 billion per...

Many economists and others are interested in the phenomenon of rising alcohol content of wine and its potential causes. Has the alcohol content of wine risen—and if so, by how much, where, and when? What roles have been played by climate change and other environmental factors compared with...

Recent theoretical work suggests that government policies may in°uence the quality mix of a commodity. This paper provides empirical evidence of quality responses to government policies for wheat policy implemented in France. Analysis is conducted using a detailed data set that includes the...

Many low-income countries pursue cheap-food policies in which consumers pay subsidized prices for bread, rice and other staples. This paper addresses the issue of why different governments select different food subsidy policies, using multiple instruments rather than a simple across-the-board...

Many commentators have claimed that farm subsidies have contributed significantly to the ―obesity epidemic‖ by making fattening foods relatively cheap and abundant and, symmetrically, that taxing ―unhealthy‖ commodities or subsidizing ―healthy‖ commodities would contribute to...