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Abstract
A longstanding puzzle in comparative economics is the 'developmental paradox', the tendency for government support for
agriculture to increase with national income and to decrease with the proportion of economic activity and of the population in
agriculture. This paper offers a microeconomic explanation for that puzzle. It establishes analytically the microeconomic basis
for coalition alignments with respect to food price policy, then numerically simulates the comparative static effects of
alternative food policies on coalition structure. A parsimonious household model applied to a heterogeneously endowed
society demonstrates how variation in individual welfare effects might beget distinct coalitions in the debate over food price
policy and how those policies are inextricably linked to land, population, and technology policies in food agriculture.
Moreover, coalition alignments on particular policy debates are path-dependent. In particular, food price policy creates its own
political support. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.