The objective of this thesis is to assess the impact of the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) refonn and the implementation of decoupled supports on the fanning sector in three EU- J5 countries, namely England, France and Sweden. The main assumption behind the research is that the shift from coupled to decoupled payments will change the remuneration of productive inputs and therefore have an impact on fanners' distribution of allocatable fixed resources between on- and off-fann activities. T~~ thesis focuses more specifically on two factors of agricultural production: labour and lanl The thesis presents a conceptual framework of decoupling and its impacts on land and labour decisions based on economic rationality. On this basis, it empirically explores the detenninants of the intentions to exit and alter the size ofthe fann (measured in land area) and of operators' time allocation between on- and off-fann activities, within a 5-year time horizon from 2006, under three policy scenarios, namely a counterfactual continuing Agenda 2000, the implementation of the Single Fann payment ,as decided in the countries studied and an hypothetical full decoupling scenario. The investigation of the detenninants of intentions in response to a policy change relies on economic and socio-psychological factors to allow interpreting intended behaviours deviating from the prediction of the conceptual model. The main findings of the rese~'rch indicate that fanners are planning some limited adjustments ,consistent with decoupling and that operators' attitudes and opinions do impact on their plans. The first chapter of the thesis introduces the bac;kground and the objectives of the study. Chapter 2 focuses on decoupling and its expected'impacts on fanners and the fanning sector, and the tools available to study those impacts. The motivations and drawbacks behind the choice of a survey of intentions are presented, as well as the interest of using sociopsychological variables in such a context. Chapter 3 is concerned with the questions of exit/growth and time allocation and the development of a conceptual framework within which these can be studied. Methodological approaches and hypotheses are derived. Chapter 4 presents the characteristics of the case-study countries. Chapter 5 is focusing on data requirement and collection. Finally, chapter 6 and 7 present the results and policy implications focusing on exit/growth and time allocation respectively, while chapter 8 concludes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:485424 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Douarin, Elodie |
| Publisher | Imperial College London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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