The Political Economy of Agricultural Price Distortions

Kym Anderson is George Gollin Professor of Economics, School of Economics, University of Adelaide, Australia. During 2004–7 he was on extended leave at the World Bank's Development Research Group as Lead Economist, Trade Policy. Earlier, he spent 1990–92 at the Research Division of the GATT (now the WTO) Secretariat in Geneva. Professor Anderson has published approximately 300 articles and 40 books, including The Political Economy of Agricultural Protection (with Yujiro Hayami and others, which received the Tohata Memorial Award from Japan's National Institute for Research Advancement), Disarray in World Food Markets (with Rod Tyers, Cambridge University Press, 1992), New Silk Roads (Cambridge University Press, 1992), and Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda (with Will Martin, which received the American Agricultural Economics Association's 2006 Quality of Communication Award and the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society's 2007 Quality of Research Discovery Prize). During 2006–9 Professor Anderson directed a large empirical research project for the World Bank on distortions to agricultural incentives, covering 75 countries. Four region-oriented books and two global-oriented books appeared in 2008–9 and 2009–10, respectively, from this research project, in addition to this present book.

• Part I. Introduction: 1. Understanding government interventions in agricultural markets Kym Anderson; 2. Agricultural distortion patterns since the 1950s: what needs explaining Kym Anderson, Johanna Croser, Damiano Sandri and Ernesto Valenzuela; Part II. Conceptual Frameworks and Historical Origins: 3. Political economy of agricultural distortions: the literature to date Johan Swinnen; 4. Special interests versus the public interest in policy determination Gordon Rausser and Gérard Roland; 5. Anglo-French trade, 1689–1899: agricultural trade policies, alcohol taxes and war John Nye; 6. Agricultural protection growth in Europe, 1870–1969 Johan Swinnen; 7. Determinants of farm policies in the United States, 1996–2008 David Orden, David Blandford and Tim Josling; 8. Agricultural distortions in the transition economies of Asia and Europe Scott Rozelle and Johan Swinnen; Part III. Political Econometrics: The Past Fifty Years: 9. Agricultural price distortions and stabilization Will Masters and Andres Garcia; 10. Which governments tax or subsidize agricultural trade? Kishore Gawande and Bernard Hoekman; 11. Impacts of ideology, inequality, lobbying and public finance Pushan Dutt and Devashish Mitra; 12. Agricultural trade interventions in Africa Robert Bates and Steven Block; 13. Do trade agreements reduce the volatility of agricultural assistance rates? Olivier Cadot, Marcelo Olarreaga and Jeanne Tschopp; 14. Constitutional rules and agricultural policy outcomes Alessandro Olper and Valentina Raimondi; Appendix. Coverage and distribution of assistance across countries and products, 1955–2007 Kym Anderson and Johanna Croser.

Review of the hardback: 'Efficiency-sapping agriculture protection in the rich nations continues to be a problem, and it seems to be spreading to emerging economies just when climate change will require the world's food production and trade to be more efficient. Using a massive new data set, this book illuminates the political economy determinants of farm policies - the determinants that we must change if the world's food production is to meet twenty-first-century challenges. In short this book is right; the right people on the right topic at the right time.' Richard Baldwin, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva