We document a very large increase in agricultural productivity, peasants’ living standards, and industrial development in the 19 century Imperial Russia as a result of the abolition of serfdom. We construct a novel province-level panel dataset of development outcomes and conduct a difference-in-differences analysis relying on cross-sectional variation in the shares of serfs and over-time variat...

The current status of the agricultural sector in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is described, in the context of reforms undertaken during the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market-based one. Sectoral performance is analyzed, focussing especially on general trends in production, and emerging trading patterns. Five critical basic elements of reform are de...

This paper examines the impact of a property rights reform in rural China that allowed farmers to lease out their land. We find the reform led to increases in land rental activity in rural households. Consistent with a model of transaction costs in land markets, our results indicate that the formalization of leasing rights resulted in a redistribution of land toward more productive farmers. Con...

The European Union budget is subject to a strict annual balanced budget rule. Given different types of expenditure within the budget, this rule has most effect on and is most threatened by spending on the Common Agricultural Policy. This article examines the merits of applying a balanced budget rule to the EU budget and explores the links between the budget and the CAP. The presence of the rule...

We explore in this article an institutional foundation of agricultural protectionism in Japan, a country long recognized as resisting international pressures to open up its rice market. Using our qualitative analysis of postwar politics of agricultural protectionism and a simple formal model, we argue that farmers in Japan have stronger incentives to mobilize electoral support for the governing...

European cattle markets have recently undergone significant change. We explore the simultaneous impacts of agricultural policy reform and the occurrence of an animal health crisis on spatial interdependencies of calf prices of four major European Union markets. The markets are found to be integrated. Price shocks are rapidly absorbed. We find that the member state specific implementations of th...

The new direction taken by the Common Agricultural Policy towards rural development, originating in the year 1992, was strengthened in the Agenda 2000 and re-intensified with the CAP reform 2003. Austrian agriculture followed this track very early and intensively, explainable because of the natural conditions and agricultural structures. Here Austria differs considerably from other Iron Curtain...

China’s agricultural development in recent decades is impressive. Its farmers continue to feed the world’s largest population and China’s crop yields are well above global averages. Yet rural incomes have been stagnating, with wide and growing geographic disparities. Overall, China’s median net per capita rural income is low, estimated at US$317 in 2003. Nevertheless, Chinese agricultural devel...

This paper uses a simplified version of classical information theory to improve understanding of the dynamic potential of innovation systems in developing countries with a special focus on issues of agricultural poverty. Using examples drawn from emergent knowledge markets in industrialised countries, the paper suggests that such an analytical approach focuses attention directly on the types of...

This paper uses a simplified version of classical information theory to improve understanding of the dynamic potential of innovation systems in developing countries with a special focus on issues of agricultural poverty. Using examples drawn from emergent knowledge markets in industrialised countries, the paper suggests that such an analytical approach focuses attention directly on the types of...