| Abstract—This paper studies the role of political institutions in determining the political success of agriculture in avoiding taxation or attracting government transfers in developing and industrialized countries, respectively. The model is based on a probabilistic voting environment, where in industrialized countries rural districts are less ideologically committed than urban districts, while in developing countries urban districts are less ideologically committed than rural districts. As a consequence, in industrialized (developing) countries rural (urban) districts are pivotal in determining the coalition that obtains a majority, whereas urban (rural) districts are pivotal within the majority itself. In bargaining at the legislature, this generates a... |
