Agriculture, Agronomy, and Political Economy: Some Missing Links

Some Political Economy Aspects of EMU

European Monetary Union (EMU) is here at last, but according to economists’ traditional perspective on economic policy making, it should not be. Given the nontrivial nature of this occurrence, it offers an important warning signal that policy economists need to reexamine our assumptions about the forces generating economic policy decisions. Economists, of course, have strong preferences for ana...

Understanding the Political Economy of Agriculture in the Tropics

This paper offers a new explanation for why some governments consistently impose such high agricultural tax rates that their revenues decline, and consistently spend what tax revenue they have on things other than productive public investments such as agricultural R&D. We propose an intertemporal political economy model, in which taxes and R&D levels are set in a repeated game between governmen...

Political Economy Determinants of Public Investment Decision-making in Agriculture

ublic investments in agriculture in Africa can have pro‐ found effects on productivity in the sector. It is therefore important to understand how budgetary allocation decisions are made. For example, what are the reasons for persistent underin‐ vestment in agricultural research on the African continent? A mere reference to ignorance of policymakers about the demon‐ strated contributions of agri...

The Political Economy of Agriculture in France’s Fifth Republic

Agricultural activity, agricultural politics, and agricultural policy are interrelated. In this article, I discuss some of the linkages in the context of France’s Fifth Republic. I demonstrate that the geographic relationship inside France between agricultural product mix and voting behavior helps to explain French governmental conduct during three major episodes of international agricultural p...

The political economy of agriculture in Southern Africa