1 Political economy lessons from the world food crisis 2007-08 Sarah Maas and Alan Matthews 1 Abstract This paper seeks to explain the responses of developing countries to the food price spike in 2007-08. Drawing on the literature on the political economy of agricultural policy-making, we identify those factors that might make it more likely that a developing country used trade measures to dampen the transmission of the global price shock to domestic agricultural markets. We find that the factors important in explaining variations in agricultural distortions across countries over time do not predict how countries responded to the food price spike. The main factors explaining the differential responses across countries turn out to be population size, region, democratic accountability and literacy levels. Importantly, the analysis does not suggest that responses were driven by decision processes captured by an urban elite. Keywords: agricultural distortions, food price spike 2007-08, political economy, trade policy 1 Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Contact email: alan.matthews@tcd.ie . The authors wish to acknowledge financial support received from the “New Issues in Agricultural, Food and Bio-energy Trade (AGFOODTRADE)” Small and Medium-scale Focused Research Project, Grant Agreement no. 212036), funded by the European Commission. The views expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Commission. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Development Studies Association Annual Conference 2009, University of Ulster, Coleraine Campus, 2nd – 4th September 2009.