The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has evolved from an allocative towards a dis-tributive policy. Distributive policies aim at correcting market outcomes according to politi-cally determined objectives usually through transferring money from richer to poorer house-holds. We compare the...

The Water Framework Directive requires EU Member States to analyse economic impacts of the Directive's implementation. To reach a "good status", instruments have to be judged according to their cost-effectiveness. We evaluate costs and effects of measures to reduce nitrate emission of Austrian...

In January 2003, the EU Commission published details of the proposed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Core elements of this reform are the reduction of intervention prices (for grain and milk) and the decoupling of direct payments from production. Several countries (including Austria)...

Direct payments are the most important expenditure of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). They are mostly spent on decoupled direct payments which are intended to be allocatively neutral. Increasing volumes of such transfers imply that distributive aspects of CAP expenditures become more...

The introduction of decoupled direct payments in the EU was a substantial change of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003. After decoupling direct payments from production, it has become evident that distributional objectives are the major justification of farm payments. There are three...

Evaluating sustainable development is becoming increasingly important in policy making, evaluation practice and the scientific world in general. However, at present, there is neither a generally accepted set of measures and evaluation methods, nor specific standards to be met. Sustainable...

Thirty years ago, Austria introduced the milk quota regime in order to throttle production and keep domestic producer prices at a high level. The members of what was then the European Economic Community followed down the same road in 1984. The European Commission plans to discontinue the milk...

Direct payments are the most important expenditure of the Common Agricultural Policy. They are mostly in the form of decoupled direct payments which are intended to be allocatively neutral. Increasing volumes of such transfers imply that distributive aspects of CAP expenditures become more...

The introduction of decoupled direct payments in the EU was a substantial change of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003. After decoupling direct payments from production, it has become evident, that distributional objectives are the major justification of farm payments. There are three...