Politicians and farm lobbyists frequently use the argument that agricultural policy is necessary to safeguard jobs in agriculture. We explore whether this is true by conducting an econometric ex post evaluation of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the three East German States Brandenburg, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt. Whereas previous studies have employed descriptive statistics or qualitative methods and have looked at single policy instruments in isolation, we apply a difference-in-differences estimator to analyze the employment effects of the entire portfolio of CAP measures simultaneously. Based on panel data at the county level, we find that investment aids and transfers to less-favored areas had a zero marginal employment effect. We present evidence that full decoupling of direct payments in 2005 led to labor shedding, as it made transfer payments independent of factor allocation. Spending on modern technologies in processing and marketing and measures aimed at the development of rural areas led to job losses in agriculture. Agrienvironmental measures, on the other hand, kept labor-intensive technologies in production or induced them. This analysis calls into question whether an expansion of existing second pillar measures is a reasonable way to use funds modulated away from the first pillar.JEL classifications: J43, Q18, R58

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate the effects of direct payments and rural development measures of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on employment in agriculture. We work with a dynamic labour demand equation augmented by the full set of policy instruments of the CAP, which is estimated on a panel dataset of 69 East German regions. We present results for four estimators which differ in how they eliminate the fixed effects and how they address the endogeneity of the lagged dependent variable. The results suggest that there were few desirable effects on job maintenance in agriculture. While there is some indication that investment subsidies have halted labour shedding on farms, a rise in the general wage level reduced labour use in agriculture. Changes in direct payments had no employment effects. Generally, labour adjustment exhibits a strong path dependency.

Croatia, EU Accession, Agriculture, Q12, Q18,

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