Political reforms and public policy: evidence from agricultural and food policies

Alessandro Olper, Jan Fatkowski and Swinnenm Johan

No 6336, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of political regime transitions on public policy using a new data set on global agricultural and food policies over a 50-year period (including data from 74 developing and developed countries over the 1955–2005 period). The authors find evidence that democratization leads to a reduction of agricultural taxation, an increase in agricultural subsidization, or both. The empirical findings are consistent with the predictions of the median voter model because political transitions occurred primarily in countries with a majority of farmers. The results are robust to different specifications, estimation approaches, and variable definitions.

Keywords: Parliamentary Government; Labor Policies; Emerging Markets; Political Economy; Population Policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cdm, nep-dev and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Political Reforms and Public Policy: Evidence from Agricultural and Food Policies (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6336

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