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Despite the abundant literature on the impact of subsidies on world cotton prices, there is no consensus on the quantification of that impact. Our article describes a meta-analysis aimed at explaining the lack of consensus. We also identify the key factors needed to describe cotton-price dynamics, and report our results concerning the effect of subsidies. We show that the variations between studies are mainly due to the choice of elasticity values, the size of the subsidies, and inclusion of certain key factors. Effective modeling requires a precise estimation of elasticities and the inclusion of determinants of world cotton prices such as inventory levels and the price of polyester.