Regionale Verteilungswirkungen der Europäischen Agrarpolitik (English shop)

Theoretische Überlegungen und empirische Evidenz

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The regional distributional effects of EU agricultural support have over time become a central topic of (agricultural) policy and academic debate. One essential reason for this is the growing importance of economic and social cohesion as a policy area of the EU. Although the economic literature has, particularly in the recent past, paid increasing attention to the causal relationships between financial support of the agricultural sector and regional income disparities, certain aspects still remain barely investigated. The present study attempts to further close this research gap by means of qualitative and quantitative analyses. After a brief introduction, the development of EU agricultural support over time is first presented and an impact analysis is provided. Subsequently, the relationship between the EU agricultural reforms and the quantity of factor inputs is examined. For this purpose, activity-specific intermediate input coefficients are estimated on the basis of statistics from the Regional Economic Accounts for Agriculture of the German Länder (R-LGR). The empirical calculations of the extent to which regions are favoured or burdened by agricultural policy focus on the Federal Republic of Germany. Two levels of spatial aggregation are distinguished: on the one hand the federal states (NUTS 1 level) and on the other hand the Hessian districts and independent cities (NUTS 3 level). The period considered mainly extends from 1991 to 2004, during which considerable adjustments were made to the EU’s agricultural policy instruments. Where the data allowed, the years from 1979 and 1986 onwards are also covered.

The empirical analysis of the effects of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy on agricultural revenues and on society-wide incomes is based on a comparison with a hypothetical situation without policy. With regard to agricultural revenues, a positive relationship between the level of agricultural revenues without policy and absolute agricultural support can be demonstrated both at the level of the federal states and for the Hessian districts and independent cities. In relative terms, however, and measured as the percentage PSE, agricultural support is higher in the regions with lower revenues. In principle, the EU’s agricultural policy leads to a reduction in the relative dispersion of agricultural revenues. Moreover, it can be observed that the “dispersion-reducing” effect of the EU’s agricultural policy has tended to increase since the beginning of the 1990s. However, no relationship with the reforms of the EU’s agricultural policy or with the extent of agricultural support can be established, so that adjustments in production structure and intensity are more likely to account for this result.

The examination of the redistributive effects of the EU’s agricultural policy for society as a whole makes clear that the majority of the federal states and the majority of the Hessian regions are disadvantaged by this policy. As expected, a negative relationship between the level of net transfers from the EU’s agricultural policy and the population density of a region can be demonstrated. In addition, there is a negative relationship between the level of net transfers and the disposable income of a region. This also explains why the EU’s agricultural policy leads to a reduction in society-wide income differences between regions. Accordingly, an income redistribution takes place from urban and prosperous regions to rural and poorer regions. No influence of the EU’s agricultural policy on growth developments in per capita income could be established. For such effects, the share of net transfers in disposable income, at about one percent on average, appears too small.

The results thus indicate that the EU’s agricultural policy, although this is not among its explicit tasks, contributes to reducing economic imbalances. In this respect, this policy area is consistent with the EU’s cohesion objective, according to which income disparities between regions are to be reduced. The redistributive effects of the EU’s agricultural policy presented here can, as it were, be regarded as a “side effect” of the product-specific favouring of agricultural producers.