Land inequality, government ideology and agricultural protection

This paper presents an empirical investigation of how agricultural land ownership inequality and government ideology (right-wing vs. left-wing) affect agricultural protection. Theoretically, the links are quite ambiguous, switching from positive to negative depending on the structure of the underlying political economic model - i.e. pressure groups vs. median voter approach. The data show, overall, that protection is decreasing in land inequality and with left-wing government orientation, but not in a linear fashion: left-wing governments tend to support agriculture in more unequal societies. There is some evidence that the relationship holds better in democracies than in dictatorships.