Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2018, 64(3):101-114 | DOI: 10.17221/286/2016-AGRICECON

Towards measuring political rents in agriculture: case studies of different agrarian structures in the EUOriginal Paper

Bazyli CZYZEWSKI*,1, Anna MATUSZCZAK2
1 Department of Education and Personnel Development, Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poznan, Poland
2 Department of Macroeconomics and Agricultural Economics, Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poznan, Poland

It is generally believed that the subsidisation of agriculture serves as a payment of political rents to farmers. Here, we attempt to show that characterisation of the entire amount of subsidies as "political rent" is unjustified in the light of the definition of political rent as formulated in the rent-seeking theory. Political rents in agriculture diverge from the definition, since the resources devoted to rent-seeking partly serve to produce public goods - that part cannot be regarded as wastage. Furthermore, if market imperfections cause rents to be captured by other entities (the treadmill theory), then it is even more true that these benefits are not exclusive. However, it is hard to find any attempts to measure the value of political rents. Thus, a novel methodology is proposed for valuing these items, with the aim of calculating the "pure political rent", based on an input-output (I-O) Leontief approach adopting matrices for "representative farms" according to EUFADN typology and on a decomposition of the Hicks-Moorsteen TFP index for the period 2007-2012 for four countries: Slovakia, France, Austria and Poland.

Keywords: agriculture, CAP, input-output analysis, rent-seeking

Published: March 31, 2018  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
CZYZEWSKI B, MATUSZCZAK A. Towards measuring political rents in agriculture: case studies of different agrarian structures in the EU. Agric. Econ. - Czech. 2018;64(3):101-114. doi: 10.17221/286/2016-AGRICECON.
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Barett C.B. (1993): On price risk and the inverse farm size-productivity relationship. University of WisconsinMadison, Department of Agricultural Economics Staff Paper, Series No. 369: 1-17.
    2. Birner R., Resnick D. (2010): The political economy of policies for smallholder. Agriculture World Development, 38: 442-1452. Go to original source...
    3. Chen Z., Huffman W.E., Rozelle S. (2011): Inverse relationship between productivity and farm size: The case of China. Contemporary Economic Policy, 29: 580-592. Go to original source...
    4. Cochrane W.W. (1958): Farm Prices: Myth and Reality. University of Minnesota Press, St. Paul.
    5. Coelli T.J., Prasada Rao D.S., Donnell Ch.J., Battese G.E. (2005): An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis. Springer, Armidale.
    6. Czyżewski B., Brelik A. (2014): Czy subsydia ze wspólnej polityki rolnej UE są rentą polityczną? Próba konceptualizacji. Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development, 31: 13-20.
    7. Deininger K., Binswanger H.P. (1995): Rent seeking and the development of large-scale agriculture in Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 43: 493-522. Go to original source...
    8. Everitt B.S., Landau S., Leese M., Stahl D. (2011): Cluster Analysis. 5th Ed. WileySeries in Probability and Statistics, John Wiley and Sons Ltd., UK. Go to original source...
    9. Furtan W.H., Jensen M.S., Sauer J. (2008): Rent seeking and the Common Agricultural Policy: Do member countries free ride on lobbying? In: 107th EAAE Seminar "Modeling of Agricultural and Rural Development Policies", Seville, Jan 29-Feb 1, 2008.
    10. Gatnar E., Walesiak M. (2004): Metody statystycznej analizy wielowymiarowej w badaniach marketingowych. Wydawnictwo AE im. Oskara Langego, Wrocław.
    11. Gburczyk S. (1990): Podział korzyści ze wzrostu efektywności produkcji. Zagadnienia ekonomiki rolnej, 4: 3-19.
    12. Georgiev M. (2010): "Rent seeking" in agricultural contracts in the country. Trakia Journal of Sciences, 8: 230-233.
    13. Kautsky K. (1899): Die Agrarfrage (The Agrarian Question). English translation (1988) by P. Burgess. Zwan. Winchester, Mass.
    14. Kazukauskas A., Newman C., Clancy D., Sauer J. (2013): Disinvestment, farm size, and gradual farm exit: The Impact of subsidy decoupling in a European context. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 95: 1068-1087. Go to original source...
    15. Lecomte Y., Louis J. (1974): Méthode des comptes de surplus: essai d'application à la politique industrielle. Statistiques et études financières, 13: 3-19. Go to original source...
    16. Levins R.A., Cochrane W.W. (1996): The treadmill revisited. Land Economics, 72: 550-553. Go to original source...
    17. Lipton M. (2005): The family farm in a globalizing world. 2020 VisionDiscussion Papers 40. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.
    18. Mellor J. (1976): The New Economics of Growth. Cornell Press, Ithaca, NY.
    19. Olson M. (1965): The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Yale University Press, New Haven. Go to original source...
    20. Poczta W., Mrówczyńska A. (2002): Regionalne zróżnicowanie polskiego rolnictwa. In: Poczta W., Wysocki F. (eds.): Zróżnicowanie regionalne gospodarki żywnościowej w Polsce w procesie integracji z Unią Europejską. Wydawnictwo AR im. Augusta Cieszkowskiego, Poznań.
    21. Schmitz A. (2010): Agricultural Policy, Agribusiness, and Rent-seeking Behavior. University of Toronto Press Incorporated, Toronto/Buffalo/London.
    22. Starrett D. (1988). Foundations of Public Economics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 42-44. Go to original source...
    23. Sumner D.A. (2014): American farms keep growing: size, productivity, and policy. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28: 147-148. Go to original source...
    24. Tomek W.G., Robinson K.L. (1981): Agricultural Product Prices. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London.
    25. Yanwen T., Jianbo G., Karimi H.R. (2013): The impact of the subsidy policy on Total Factor Productivity: An empirical analysis of China's cotton production. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2013: 1-8. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content