Achieving gender symmetry in rural areas is an important target for the European Union. There is no shortage of talent, ideas and energy amongst women in rural areas, nor are there legal constraints. However, a range of cultural obstacles still stand in the way of their full participation in...

The retirement decisions of individuals are strongly influenced by spousal retirement, financial incentives and institutional constraints such as access to early retirement benefits. In the European Union (EU), farm retirement is encouraged by early retirement provisions for farmers. As exit...

CAP reform affects employment in the agricultural sector as well as in other sectors of the regional economy through changes in regional and sectoral competitiveness and resulting re-allocation of fixed resources. However, analysis of the relationship between CAP reform and total regional...

This article introduces discourse analysis as a theoretical concept and an empirical methodology that may enable the endogenization of path creation and path breaking changes in conventional models of political path dependencies. Economic criteria such as rents created by a policy do not always...

We used Ricardian framework with heterogeneous land quality to analyse how policies used to support farm incomes, reduce negative agri-environmental externalities and enhance the provision of positive externalities influence land allocation decisions and land prices. Four agri-environmental...

According to neo-classical theory, farm operators’ labour allocation is determined by the relative wage they can earn from their labour on and off the farm. At the equilibrium, time should be allocated so that the marginal returns from on- and off-farm work are equal. Thus, a move from coupled...

The main objective of the paper is to trace the composition of the CAP support for Italian farms at the eve of the implementation of the CAP reform. The paper is based on three regional case studies, that represent as many farming specialisation typologies: Veneto, in the North-East, where...

The common a priori persuasion is that agriculture suffers from decapitalization due to financial constraints faced by producers. This view is the basis for the national agricultural policy, which emphasizes reimbursement of input costs and substitutes government and quasi-government...

There has been little systematic analysis of the extent to which organic farming policies have influenced growth in the organic sector. Analyses of organic farming policy instruments, for the most part, provide extensive and detailed reviews of instruments applied either in a single country or...

This work analyzes farm diversification activities in an Italian region (Marche). The study examines 387 farms from Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) over a six-year period (2000-2005), applying Discrete Choice Models to identify their business. Recognizing the driving forces of such...