This paper summarizes a new databasethat sheds light on the impact of trade-related policydevelopments over the past half century on distortions toagricultural incentives and thus also to consumer prices forfood in 75 countries spanning the per capita incomespectrum. Price support policies of advanced economies hurtnot only domestic consumers and exporters of other productsbut also foreign producers and traders of farm products, andthey reduce national and global economic welfare. On theother hand, the governments of many developing countrieshave directly taxed their farmers over the pasthalf-century, both directly (e.g., export taxes) and alsoindirectly via overvaluing their currency and restrictingimports of manufactures. Thus the price incentives facingfarmers in many developing countries have been depressed byboth own-country and other countries' agriculturalprice and international trade policies. The authorssummarize these and realted stylized facts that can be drawnfrom a new World Bank database that is worthy of theattention of political economy theorists, historians andeconometricians. These indicators can be helpful inaddressing such questions as the following: where is therestill a policy bias against agricultural production? To whatextent has there been overshooting in the sense that somedeveloping-country food producers are now being protectedfrom import competition along the lines of the examples ofearlier-industrializing Europe and Japan? What are thepolitical economy forces behind the more-successfulreformers, and how do they compare with those inless-successful countries where major distortions inagricultural incentives remain? And what explains thepattern of distortions across not only countries but alsoindustries and in the choice of support or tax instrumentswithin the agricultural sector of each country?
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