Policy related transaction costs (TCs) is an important issue when evaluating different policy options. However, TCs are often not taken into account in policy evaluations, but may be as important for efficiency as the direct production costs. Different policies may result in different TCs, and the main aim of this article is to explore possible reasons for these differences. We compare the level of TCs for 12 different agricultural policy measures in Norway, and we analyze the causes of the differences along three different dimensions: asset specificity, frequency, and point of policy application. At the national level we find that all three dimensions are of importance when explaining the differences, while variation in TCs incurred by farmers are mainly due to differences in point of policy application and asset specificity. Data show that direct price support has the lowest TCs, while more direct payments for environmental amenities has the highest. Copyright 2007 International Association of Agricultural Economists.
In this paper we analyse scientistsʼ perspectives on the release of genetically modified (GM) crops into the environment, and the relationship between their perspectives and the context that they work within, e.g. their place of employment (university or industry), funding of their research (public or industry) and their disciplinary background (ecology, molecular biology or conventional plant breeding). We employed Q-methodology to examine these issues. Two distinct factors were identified by interviewing 62 scientists. These two factors included 92 per cent of the sample. Scientists in factor 1 had a moderately negative attitude to GM crops and emphasised the uncertainty and ignorance involved, while scientists in factor 2 had a positive attitude to GM crops and emphasised that GM crops are useful and do not represent any unique risks
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