Special Interests and the Public Interest in Public Policy and Information: Insights from Agricultural and Food Policies

Johan Swinnen

A chapter in Modern Agricultural and Resource Economics and Policy, 2022, pp 221-247 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Political considerations are crucial to understand government policies since almost all public policies have both efficiency and redistributive effects and are therefore subject to lobbying and pressure from special interests. Much of the political economy literature has studied public policies that distort the economy and reduce aggregate welfare, such as import tariffs or export taxes. An important theme of Gordon Rausser’s work on political economy has been on public policies that have positive welfare effects, while at the same time affecting rent distribution and, thus, lobbying of special interests. This chapter reviews key contributions (a) on the political economy of public investments and redistributive policies (b) on the political economy of public provision of information and (c) on how the private provision of information affects public policies through consumer and voter behavior.

Keywords: J18; L32; F38; Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nrmchp:978-3-030-77760-9_10

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-77760-9_10

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