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The paper presents key results regarding a possible reform of the Common Agricultural Policy direct payments, based on a scenario analysis by the CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact) modelling system. Combining aggregate programming models at the NUTS 2 level with a global spatial multi-commodity model, it enables depicting the impacts of different policy and economic scenarios from regional to the global scale. The paper discusses simulated impacts on farm income and agricultural markets from implementing the European flat rate hectare payment corrected for the purchasing power disparities across the Member States while reducing the overall budget outlays for direct payments by 50% and dismantling the remaining coupled support to ruminants. The results are an outcome of a comparative static analysis against a reference scenario which assumes the Health Check policy in 2020. The model results suggest a drop of the agricultural gross value added by 9% at the aggregate EU27 level compared to the reference scenario. Impacts differ between the Member States groups, Member States and regions, depending on the share of premiums in the income from agriculture, specialization and competitiveness of production. The largest reduction is projected for the suckler cow herd, dropping by 6% compared to the reference scenario. The drop is caused by removing the coupled support and affecting mostly the herds in Spain and France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morley B. and Morgan W. Causality between exports, productivity and financial support in European Union agriculture, Regional Studies. The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal relationship between exports and productivity and exports and agricultural support within the European Union. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to co-integration and error correction models, evidence is found of exports within the European Union being determined by support in Ireland and France, as well as gains in productivity contributing to export growth in Germany and the UK. This finding may help explain why some countries within the European Union, such as France, have large agricultural trade surpluses, whilst others run large deficits... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-war period, most Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states followed a developmental policy paradigm in the agricultural sector. Using protection against international competition, regulation of prices and markets, and various structural measures, governments sought to promote a more productive, efficient agriculture, all the while sparing farmers from income instability. None the less, drawing on a comparison of France, Germany and the United States, the article demonstrates that the role of the state under the developmental paradigm varied depending on the ideas guiding policy-makers. These varying state roles become evident in a comparison of agricultural structural policies between 1955 and 1985. The differences among states in the institutionalization of the developmental paradigm, in turn, leave distinctive policy repertoires in place that differ in the obstacles they place in the way of a paradigm shift toward market liberalism. With fewer such obstacles, the US is shown to have moved to a reduced state role after 1985. In contrast, the two European states have participated in the elaboration of a new differentiated policy paradigm that seeks to balance market liberalism with a commitment to state support for social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]