INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNITED-STATES AGRICULTURAL POLICIES IN THE 1920S

We examine U.S. agricultural policy as an institutional choice. Price controls in World War I had demonstrated the government’s influence in markets, and with falling crop prices in the 1920s, farmers appealed to the federal government. The federal government was large enough by then to intervene in various ways. It could have assisted private cooperatives by providing antitrust exemptions, market information, and enforcement of cooperative rules or intervened directly with mandatory output reductions and targeted prices. The policies adopted were influenced by crop-specific characteristics and broader market conditions affecting the success of private cooperatives. © 1991, The Economic History Association. All rights reserved.