In the United States the 1996 agricultural policy reform ushered in market-oriented farm policies and also gave farmers a seven-year lump-sum payment that was not tied to production. Some scholars argue that farm program payments have changed the distribution of income among farm households. Our...

The 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 has been portrayed as a radical departure from the farm policies of the past 60 years. FAIR brought sweeping institutional changes to the basic price and income support programs, many of which had been in place since the...