The Pattern of Protection for Food Crops and Cash Crops in Developing Countries.

A broad commodity-related data base is utilized to investigate the structure of agricultural protection in developing countries over time. A decomposition approach for net nominal rates of protection, which distinguishes direct and indirect agricultural policies, is proposed and applied to protection levels for wheat, rice, and coffee in the period 1969-85. We show that the food crops are favored compared with the export crops with regard to (1) average levels of net protection, (2) the trend of net protection, and (3) the impact of policies on the stability of producer prices. Indirect agricultural policies are crucial for producer incentives but are not necessarily dominating direct agricultural policies. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.