Challenges in Modelling and Evaluating Effects of Agricultural Policy Reforms and Trade Agreements

International Relations/Trade,

Situ8: browsing and capturing geolocated user-created content

The idea behind Situ8 is a simple one: enable learners to browse and/or create their own content that is geolocated, i.e. somehow related to a physical place in the “real world” (FitzGerald, 2012a). It was inspired by the popular mScape platform (Stenton et al., 2007), that enabled users to attach multimedia content to a map and deploy it through a mobile device, with such media being ‘triggered’ by a user’s geographical position, as measured by GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. However, unlike mScape, Situ8 allows both the creation and delivery of geolocated media i.e. it is a two-process

PUBLIC POLICY IN VERTICALLY RELATED MARKETS: A COURNOT OLIGOPOLY-OLIGOPSONY MODEL

We use a partial equilibrium two-country model, with two vertically related markets, with perfect competition in the primary good sector and with a fixed number of processing firms in each country, characterized by a Cournot behavior upstream and downstream. In the first stage of the game, the government of the exporting country chooses the level of price instruments on both goods. The targeting principle is used to characterize optimal intervention in presence of a minimum revenue constraint towards primary producers. Keywords: vertically related markets, imperfectvertically related markets, imperfect competition, Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade, F1, H2, L1, Q1,

The Fischler's Proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy: Paving the Way for the Future?

The Mid-Term Review proposals presented by the European Commission in July 2002 and January 2003 correspond no doubt to the most radical CAP reform since the latter was established in the early 1960's. This is not because these proposals include firm commitments on market access and export competition dossiers in the perspective of WTO talks. The proposals are silent on these points. This is because they finally achieve the shift from product to producer support by replacing all existing or newly introduced direct income payments, with a few exceptions, by a single decoupled payment per farm, based on historical references and conditional upon cross-compliance to environmental, animal welfare as well as food security and quality criteria. In addition, they expand the scope of rural development instruments to promote food quality, meet higher standards and foster animal welfare and they increase amounts available for rural development by transferring funds from the first to the second pillar via the introduction of an EU-wide system of degression and modulation. This paper discusses these proposals from both an external and internal point of view. We analyse to what extent the MTR proposals could facilitate the EU negotiation position in the WTO. From a domestic point of view, these proposals correspond to appropriate changes in the right direction with however some important qualifications. We analyse these qualifications. We also discuss to what extent the MTR proposals should be considered as the ultimate reform of the CAP or as the third step, after 1992 and 1999, in the long-term process where public intervention would be mainly reserved for correcting market failures, notably the promotion of positive externalities and public goods as well as the reduction in risk and instability faced by agricultural producers.Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), decoupling, cross-compliance, modulation, WorldTrade Organisation (WTO)

Multilateral Agricultural Negotiations and Multifunctionality: Some Research Issues

International Relations/Trade,

Mapping the Decoupling : Transfer Efficiency of the Single Farm Payment Scheme

This paper focuses on the question of the transfer efficiency of the SFP scheme and represents graphically the results of an analytical framework with the seminal Surplus Transformation Curve initiated by Josling (1974) and developed by Gardner (1983). The special feature of the SFP scheme resides in the paradox that exists between the tradability of the entitlements and the activation constraint that creates a particular link to the land. The main result is that redistributive effects between landowners and farmers depend on the total number of entitlements, so they have to be considered as a lever to increase the transfer efficiency of the scheme.Single Farm Payment, transfer efficiency, surplus transformation curve, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance,

Agricultural policies in France: from EU regulation to national design.

The present document presents the French way EU agricultural policies have been, are, and will be, implemented, considering not only the means but also financing resources and procedures to achieve the national agricultural goals. For a better understanding a review of the CAP foundations is firstly provided in order to address the historic issues of the evolution of European agricultural policies. Then, main agricultural highlights of the French situation are briefly depicted, in order to better frame the two head points that are the French translation of markets policy on the one hand and of rural development on the other hand. Both issues are policy-oriented and sketches of national underlying strategies are given whenever the available data were relevant enough.EU Agricultural Policies, France

PROMOTING MULTIFUNCTIONALITY WHILE MINIMIZING TRADE DISTORTION EFFECTS: THE RELATIVE MERITS OF TRADITIONAL POLICY INSTRUMENTS

In relation to the growing debate around multifunctionality, this paper attempts to classify alternative measures of agricultural income support according to their ability in achieving three policy objectives (supporting agricultural income, promoting positive externalities and reducing negative ones) as well as to their induced trade distortion effects. Four income support programs are considered: a production-linked payment program, a land-based payment program and two decoupled payment programs. Their effectiveness as regards to the three policy objectives and their relatives induce trade distortion effects are examined on an equal cost/support basis through a conceptual framework that allows for free entry in the sector and the land price to adjust endogenously. Analytical results show clearly that no program uniformly dominates others. They also allow to identify the key parameters that have a substantial bearing on the relative merits of these programs.International Relations/Trade,

Impacts of Agri-Environmental Policies on Land Allocation and Land Prices

We develop a Ricardian framework with heterogeneous land quality to analyse the effects of agricultural and agri-environmental support policies on land allocation decisions and land prices. Four agri-environmental policy instruments are considered: a uniform area payment, a quality-dependent area payment, a mandatory buffer strip policy and a voluntary buffer strip payment. We also analyse how general tax and monetary policies may affect agricultural land prices. The theoretical framework is illustrated by an empirical model applied to Finnish agriculture. The empirical model shows that macroeconomic factors, such as general tax and monetary policies, may exert a greater impact on land prices than some minor fine-tuning in agrienvironmental policies.agri-environmental policy, acreage subsidy, land price, Q11, Q18, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,