This paper describes agricultural policy choices and tests some predictions of political economy theories. It begins with three broad stylized facts: governments tend to tax agriculture in poorer countries, and subsidize it in richer ones, tax both imports and exports more than nontradables and...

This chapter begins with a brief summary of economic growth and structural changes in the region since the 1950s and of agricultural and other economic policy developments as they affected the farm sector at the time of and in various stages after independence from colonial powers. The chapter...

Cameroon is among the more prosperous countries in Africa, thanks to relatively abundant agricultural land and offshore petroleum. These spurred an economic boom from unification of the country in 1972 until 1986, which was followed by a decade of decline from 1986 to 1995 and a limited recovery...