The economics and politics of food under labor mobility

The objective of this research is to incorporate an exit option for the members of losing groups into the existing political economy frameworks. We apply this revised framework to the important example of food politics.;The first step in the analysis is to introduce migration as an exit option for losers into the Becker-Cairns neoclassical political economy model (chapter II). We find that the short run dynamic political economy critically depends upon the objectives of the interest groups and the exit options available to losers. For instance, if losers have only an 'escape' option, (i) losers will be always interested in political investment, while gainers will not invest in transfer politics unless the variable cost of migration in high enough, and (ii) losers will have more incentive to invest in political influence when the economy grows. We exploit these insights in an examination of the government's implementation of indirect transfer policies. We find that the role of information in transfer politics is important in assessing the equilibrium degree of transfer as well as the method of transfer.;Second, we highlight the importance of political entry barriers in an analysis of an agriculture biased public good (e.g., food security) in redistributive politics between agriculture and industry (chapter III). In his exercise, political resource investments are incorporated in a representative framework.;Third, we apply the implications obtained from chapter II and III to food politics. We show that the learning ability and the ability to overcome the congestion effect enhance a group's position (chapter IV). We also show how different paths of technological advance and the bargaining structure between wage workers and firms in the urban sector affect political incentives of urban dwellers and farmers, under exit options of farmers (chapter V). Finally, an empirical analysis is provided in which the role of migration in food politics in the Korean context is examined (chapter VI).