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Political Competition and Policy Choices: The Evidence From Agricultural Protection

Author

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  • Jan Fałkowski

    (Faculty of Economic Sciences and Centre for Economic Analyses of Public Sector (CEAPS), University of Warsaw)

  • Alessandro Olper

    (Università degli Studi di Milano and LICOS)

Abstract

This paper investigates whether political competition plays an important role in determining the level of agricultural protection. In order to do so, we exploit variation in political and economic data from 74 developing and developed countries for the post-war period. We use two measures of political competition: one that captures the extent to which political power can be freely contested regardless of election results and one based on vote share at last parliamentary elections. Our results, based on static and dynamic panel estimators, show unambiguously that the level of support for agriculture is the higher, the higher is the level of political competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Fałkowski & Alessandro Olper, 2012. "Political Competition and Policy Choices: The Evidence From Agricultural Protection," Working Papers 2012-18, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    • Handle: RePEc:war:wpaper:2012-18
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    4. Wanki Moon & Gabriel Pino, 2018. "Do U.S. citizens support government intervention in agriculture? Implications for the political economy of agricultural protection," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(1), pages 119-129, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    political competition; constitutional rules; agricultural distortions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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