Constitutional Rules, Informal Institutions and Agricultural Protection in Developing and Industrial Countries: Theory and Empirical Evidence

This paper empirically investigates the interaction of formal and informal political institutions as well as lobbying in determining the ability of agriculture to avoid taxation or attract government transfers. Based on our theory we identify specific interaction effects between district size and characteristic political as well as demographic framework constellation, that determine two different regimes, e.g. an u-shape and an inverse u-shape relation between district size and the level of agricultural protection. Further, our theory implies specific different patterns of how these interaction effects impact on agricultural protection levels in developing and industrialized countries. Using time-series-cross-section (TSCS) data, this paper tackles the quantitative assessment of the theoretical implications. We estimate the latent regime of agricultural protection and assess the opposing quantitative relationships. We check our results for robustness concerning dynamic specification issues and latent heterogeneity. Furthermore we gauge the possible endogeneity of institutions via an extended treatment framework.