Recently the importance of a comprehensive policy evaluation has been increasingly recognized by international organizations, e.g. the World Bank, OECD and FAO as well as especially by the EU. In particular, for agricultural policies of the second pillar a comprehensive evaluation is obligatory....

Since the beginning of transition, interregional disparities in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) have increased. Particularly, the differences between urban and rural areas have grown. This paper traces the development of these disparities and discusses, based on theoretical...

The EU Commission suggests to exclude CEC from the dynamic modulation mechanism, being part of the MTR package. This article looks at the distributional aspects of including the CEC into dynamic modulation. Under the current accession proposal the CEC would account for only 18% of the rural...

The introduction of the current Common European Agricultural Policy in ten new member states in central and eastern Europe will be a major financial challenge for the European Union. On the basis of the partial equilibrium model ESIM this article analyses potential consequences of different...

The complexity of agri-environmental economic issues is such that a model that is fully consistent at all levels of aggregation and all type of questions to be addressed is not available at the Agricultural Economics Research Institute in the Hague LEI. Such a model is probably also not...

This paper identifies major future trends and driving factors and perspectives and challenges resulting from them for European agriculture and food sectors until the year 2020. The focus of the paper is an analysis of key driving forces and the provision of a well developed reference scenario...

Decoupling of direct payments can be expected to have complex effects and the net effect on crop and fodder acreage is unclear. A literature review reveals that various simulation models uniformly project a decline of the cereal and silage maize acreage as well as ruminant production in the...

The dairy sector in the CEC countries had to cope with tremendous adjustment pressures in the 90ies. Privatization and liberalization contributed to intense competition on the CEC countries’ dairy market. Major problems that impede the competitiveness of this sector are a considerable...

In December 2006 the Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 on the use of nutrition and health claims (NHCs) on foods was enacted in order to prevent consumer deception and to harmonise law within the EU. Against this background, this paper analyses the potential costs and benefits linked with NHCs and...