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Summary China’s agricultural policy has undergone a fundamental transformation in the four decades since the introduction of market reforms in 1978 and now involves a wide array of policy instruments that range from output and input subsidies to public infrastructure expenditures. This article analyzes the political-economic determinants of China’s agricultural subsidy changes using producer subsidy equivalents (PSEs) drawn from annual data from 1984 to 2015 on 16 agricultural commodity sectors that include multiple policy instruments. Empirical results indicate that national factors, such as high rates of economic growth and a lower share of agriculture in the economy, have been the primary drivers of increases in PSEs, and that larger, more geographically concentrated agricultural sectors are more likely to be subsidized at a higher PSE rate. Finally, China’s joining the World Trade Organization in December 2001 led to significant increases in PSEs that were not already explained by internal national or commodity-specific factors. In essence, China’s agricultural subsidy programs and levels increasingly resemble those of developed countries, primarily as a result of economic transformation and the ability to structure agricultural policies within the WTO rules. Moreover, this article predicts that agricultural subsidies will trend slightly upward in the next decade and that the strongest opportunities to export to China will be in animal products or grains that are utilized for feed or processed foods, where the levels of subsidies are predicted to increase but remain lower than for traditional food crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To estimate the impact of federal spending on state incomes, we develop an annual panel data set between 1930 and 1940. Using panel methods we estimate that an added dollar of federal spending in the state increased state per capita income by between 40 and 96 cents. The point estimates for nonfarm grants are higher and for AAA farm grants are much smaller and negative in some cases. The spending led to increase in durable good spending on automobiles but had no positive effects on private employment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1954, Pierre Mendès France committed the state to curbing alcoholism as part of an effort to reorient important agricultural sectors and improve French economic performance, using milk as a symbol of his government's new direction. While Mendès France's milk drinking was often portrayed as the whim of a maverick politician, this article shows instead that it was the expression of a broadly based movement to modernize the economy. Challenging the view of an insular state that exclusively served the powerful alcohol lobbies, this article contends that the success of alcohol reform hinged on Mendès France's ability to overcome parliament and pit other economic sectors and a public health movement against those lobbies. Although it would require the more centralized authority of the Fifth Republic to implement lasting reforms to the alcohol sector, the Mendès France government helped raise public awareness about the purported link between alcoholism and agricultural subsidies that kept uncompetitive producers on the land at the taxpayer's expense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most of the past 10,000 years, long-distance agricultural trade has focused on crop seeds or cuttings, breeding animals, and farm production technologies, before the dramatic falls in trade costs over the past two centuries allowed the gradual addition of farm outputs in raw or processed form to long-distance trade. That process was helped or hindered in various periods and places by governments' trade-related policies. This paper traces the impact of those developments on terms of trade during the first globalisation wave to 1913 and then looks briefly at the inter-war period, before concentrating on the period since the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Agricultural Trade Adjustment Assistance program and America's free trade agreements with places such as South Korea and Panama as of 2014, focusing on the first decade of the U.S. Trade Adjustment Assistance program. The North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union are mentioned. Trade liberalization and domestic economic assistance are examined.

The article presents a report on a workshop on the application of social network analysis to the history of Germany and Turkey in the 19th and 20th centuries, convened in Heidelberg, Germany, from February 21-22, 2014. Topics of discussion included the Gebr. Bethmann private bank, agricultural subsidies in Eastern Germany during the Weimar Republic, and German military assistance to the Ottoman and Turkish armed forces.

This article examines the human drama of displacement and the historical relationship between economic inequalities and rural migration in Nayarit, Mexico. It shows how during the 1940s indigenous peoples, in particular, were excluded from receiving agricultural subsidies for the cultivation of corn. The lack of subsidies spurred a massive outmigration of these communities to the Nayarit lowlands and the United States. This historical analysis will help us understand why rural Mexican workers adapted to a migrant life, which continues to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A report is presented from a June 13-15, 2012 conference in Bad Soden, Germany on the changes in economic structures. Topics of discussion included changes in the subsidizations to the European agricultural industry, the history of West German consumer behavior, and a comparison of the effect of Japanese competition on the electronics industries of East and West Germany.

This paper examines accounting in the social, political, and economic context within which it operates. Specifically, the farming sector in New Zealand provides the context for studying the history of standard-value accounting. This accounting practice emerged with the support of accountants, farmers, and the state as the tax regime in New Zealand slowly moved to an income tax for farmers from 1915. The paper examines how accounting became a practice of political arithmetic, mediating the economic power of the farmers with the rest of the tax base of New Zealand. Standard-value accounting for livestock became a device that represented the power of farmers to receive favorable tax treatment compared with other New Zealanders, while still demonstrating they carried their fair share of the country's tax burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses U.S. farm subsidies during the 19th century and wheat bounties awarded to residents of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The author reflects on price controls and supports for agricultural products in U.S. legislation. Massachusetts commisioner Henry Coleman sought to assess the ability of state farmers to produce white bread made from wheat and to determine successful techniques. The article examines an affadavit from farmer Prince Dexter Ahearn requesting a bounty for grown bushels of wheat.

Presents an international chronology of events in February 2005. Chinese government's announcement of its plans in increasing farm subsidies and reducing taxes on peasants; Highlights of the 26th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-supported shah in Iran; Number of United Nations peacekeepers that were killed by militia fighters in Congo.