Public Investments in and for Agriculture Introduction

Within a policy environment of greater attention to agriculture following the food price crises in developing countries, this Special Issue is motivated by the importance of bringing to bear new conceptual and empirical research on the determinants, trends and consequences of public expenditures in support of the agricultural sector of developing economies. This introductory article lays the groundwork by first conceptually articulating the rationale for agricultural public investments. The articles in this Special Issue add to past literature in three main ways. First, careful analysis of newly compiled data provides new information on the patterns of agricultural public expenditures across developing regions. Second, the papers provide new insights on the cross-sectoral effects of different types of public spending and their complementarities and substitutability. And third, venturing into the examination of the political economy determinants of agricultural public expenditures opens the door to an important area of sparse research.