The paper tests a political economy theory of simultaneous government decision-making on income redistribution through commodity policies and on public research investment in agriculture. We use data from 37 countries on agricultural protection and public agricultural research expenditures...

The burgeoning literature on how the benefits from research may be negative for a given price support arbitrarily ignores the costs of price supports for a given level of research. Furthermore, the very existence of price supports is inconsistent with the normative criterion that governments...

This paper develops a political economy framework that determines the factors causing underinvestment in public research expenditures. Governments are unable to fully compensate for unequal income distribution effects of research because of either their inability to make credible commitments or...