Few years ago, the widely shared view was that low food prices were a curse to developing countries. The dramatic increase in food prices in 2006-2008 appears to have fundamentally altered this view. The vast majority of analyses and reports in 2008 and 2009 state that high food prices have a...

Retailers’ private standards are increasingly important in addressing consumer concerns about safety, quality and social and environmental issues. Empirical evidence shows that these private standards are frequently more stringent than their public counterparts. I develop a political economy...

Retailers’ private standards are increasingly important in addressing consumer concerns about safety, quality and social and environmental issues. Empirical evidence shows that these private standards are frequently more stringent than their public counterparts. I develop a political...

We study the political economy of instrument choice in agricultural and food policies. After a review of the historical evolution of European agricultural price and trade policy instruments since 1880, we develop a political economy model of instrument choice. The key predictions of the model...

There are major differences in regulation among various countries. A particular case is the difference between the EU and US in regulating biotechnology.We develop a formal and dynamic model of government decision-making on regulation. We show that minor differences in consumer preferences can...

We develop a model of policy communication by aid agencies, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations and we show how the need for fundraising affects the policy communication strategy of these organizations. To attract more funds, organizations may bias their communication. The bias depends on...

This paper investigates the impact of the media on the allocation of humanitarian aid. We analyze the emergency assistance provided by four Belgian aid organizations to disasters that occurred from 2002 until 2004 and the media coverage of these disasters by two Belgian newspapers. We find a...

As recently as a century ago, one out of two people in Europe was employed in the agricultural sector. Today agriculture represents only a small fraction of total employment in most EU member states. What makes this decline in agricultural employment even more striking is that this evolution has...