Agricultural policy is a complex web of interventions, covering output markets, input markets, trade, public good investments, renewable and exhaustible natural resources, the regulation of externalities, education, and the marketing and distribution of food products. In many countries, these interventions have resulted in large fiscal expenditures, in large farm product surpluses, in consequences for the environment, and benefits to special interests that are often highly concentrated. In some instances, such policies have resulted in spectacular productivity increases, and in other instances, they have led to stagnation and poverty. In this Special Issue, leading scholars explore the various ways in which agricultural policies might influence farm behavior and the consequences of those policies for agricultural productivity, the food supply chain, farm and rural household welfare, the use of farm inputs and labor, and environmental sustainability.

Prof. Gordon Rausser
Prof. WIlliam Foster
Guest Editors

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1. A catalogue of policies:
   1. Interventions to support farmer income:
      1. Border protection;
      2. Subsidies;
      3. Supply restrictions.
   2. R&D;
   3. Infrastructure (irrigation, rural electrification, road networks, telephony, etc.);
   4. Human capital investments;
   5. Other regulations and policies (food safety, invasive species, biofuels, etc., what more?);
   6. Complementarities between different policies.
2. Farm policy and the supply response:
   1. Farm-level input decisions;
   2. Scale economies;
   3. Composition of production;
   4. The implications for productivity;
   5. The aggregate supply of commodities;
   6. Short-run and long-run farmer decisions and the promise of government support.
3. Farm policy and rural incomes:
   1. Do some farm households depend on farm subsidies and other policies?
   2. Policy effects on specialization or diversification of household income sources;
   3. Can we rank policies by their efficiency at raising farmer incomes or promoting rural development? (The Gardner question);
4. Farm policy and farm labor:
   1. The response of household labor decisions;
   2. The effects of policy on migration: internal and foreign.
5. Policy and risk management in agriculture: lessons learned and forgotten:
   1. How has taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance altered production decisions:
      1. Have subsidies decreased diversification and other moral hazard effects;
      2. Government insurance and farm scale.
   2. Government crop insurance as disguised subsidy and the ways farmers and others might game the system.
6. Farm policy and unintended consequences:
   1. “Slippage” and other consequences of people taking advantage of incentive structures;
   2. Gaming the system: why policy makers and bureaucrats can never anticipate all the ways a plan can backfire;
   3. Smart versus nonsmart policies: taking into account farmer responses.
7. The history of the evolution of agricultural policies in the developed world.
8. Lessons from 75 years of development economics: agricultural policies and farm household welfare.
9. The role of agricultural policy in the alleviation of poverty.
10. Farm policy, farmer response, and environmental consequences.
11. Are food and nutrition policies farm policies?