Abstract
Since the New Deal, agriculture has been one of the most regulated sectors of the American economy. 1 Building on programs initiated with the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 (AAA), markets for most commodities have been regulated by a complex mix of price supports, acreage and marketing controls on individual producers, “parity” and “deficiency” payments to farmers, government purchases, and a variety of subsidies for exports, crop insurance, irrigation, labor, and marketing.2 For over 60 years, these programs defined federal agricultural policy. By contrast, the U.S. has had no similar comprehensive industrial policy. Certain sectors, transportation and retail trade, have been regulated, based on New Deal programs. But the scope of industrial regulation has been far less than in agriculture or than envisioned by the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA).
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Alexander, B.J., Libecap, G.D. (2000). Public Choice and the Success of Government-Sponsored Cartels: The Different Experience of New Deal Agricultural and Industrial Policies. In: Heckelman, J.C., Moorhouse, J.C., Whaples, R.M. (eds) Public Choice Interpretations of American Economic History. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4573-6_7
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