The New Deal increased the amount and breadth of agricultural regulation in the economy, shifting it from providing public goods and transfers to controlling supplies and directing government purchases to raise prices, and created the institutional structure to continue the new regulation long after the crisis ended. Agricultural laws passed by Congress and the President from 1884 through 1970 are classified as to whether they provided public goods, gave direct and indirect transfers, or engaged in economic regulation. Additionally, laws enacted from 1940 through 1970 are classified as to whether or not they were linked to specific New Deal agricultural programs. The hypothesis is tested that absent the Great Depression and New Deal, the pattern of agricultural regulation with public goods and transfers that existed prior to 1933 would have continued through 1970. Budget appropriations for economic regulation of agricultural commodities are assembled and categorized as demand enhancement and supply control to analyze how the New Deal affected regulatory expenditures relative to what existed prior to 1933. Additionally, staffing and budgets for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and domestic wheat prices are examined to determine if they were changed by New Deal policies from 1933 through 1970 compared to the pre-New Deal period. International comparisons are made to determine how the U.S. regulatory experience compared to that in other western industrial countries.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
5986.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 1997 Date of revision: Publication status: published relationship to a non-chapter. This should not happen. Please contact NBER. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5986
Note: DAE Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Did you know? Each page is provided with a technical contact, in case something is not right with the supplied information. See under "publisher info".