Impact of Economic Development on Commodity and Public Research Policies in Agriculture

Harry de Gorter () and Johan Swinnen

Review of Development Economics, 1998, vol. 2, issue 1, 41-60

Abstract: A political‐economic explanation is provided for the existence of commodity policy and research expenditures in agriculture. Structural economic characteristics such as pre‐policy endowment incomes, deadweight costs, and distributional impact of research are found to determine the levels of commodity price subsidies (taxes in developing countries) and underinvestment in research in all countries. Unequal benefits from research generate two types of interaction effects: political interaction effects, whereby commodity policy reduces research‐induced inequality, resulting in more research; and economic interaction effects, whereby deadweight costs per unit transfer decline with research. The latter effect generates increased levels of political optimal research investment.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9361.00027

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:2:y:1998:i:1:p:41-60

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1363-6669

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Development Economics is currently edited by E. Kwan Choi

More articles in Review of Development Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().