Causes of U.S. Farm Commodity Programs

This paper i s an attempt to explain variations by commodity in producer protection afforded by farm price support programs since the1930s. Particularly emphasized are theideas that these programs are essentially income redistributional measures and that, given political forces, the programs are attempts to redistribute efficiently. Variables associated with the cost to producers of generating political pressure and the social cost (deadweight losses)of redistribution are both found to be empirically important.