Positive political economy is usually concerned with economic explanations of observed policy choices, while the timing of a policy reform has not gained similar attention. This is somewhat surprising since policy makers most often are free to decide both the design and timing of a policy...

A brief review of the history of agricultural policymaking in Europe and the U.S. reveals that major policy changes have often been brought about by major socio-political "shocks," such as the Great Depression and World War II. Such shocks also lead to the creation of institutions that tend to...

This paper is concerned with the timing of an agricultural policy reform under uncertainty. The focus is on the opportunity cost of giving up the option to wait when implementing a policy reform. Including the option value in applied policy analysis can help explain why conventional analyses may...

This paper gives a general mathematical definition of an institution, and presents an explicit formal method by which to incorporate institutions in a standard general equilibrium model. We illustrate our concept using a modified Prisoner's dilemma game in which property rights over natural...