IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ajagec/v82y2000i1p14-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Goals of U.S. Agricultural Policy: A Mechanism Design Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Brent Hueth

Abstract

This article examines motivations underlying the government's choice of alternative policy mechanisms for subsidizing agriculture. Optimal policies are analyzed for three government objectives: one where the government wishes to ensure a minimum level of net income for all farmers, a second where the government's only concern is to transfer income from consumers and taxpayers to the farm sector, and a final “augmented” income-transfer objective. The analysis offers an explanation for agricultural policy mechanisms that involve overproduction by high-cost producers, relative to a free-market equilibrium. Such a distortion might arise from the existence of nonmarket values for the production of relatively high-cost farmers in the government's objective. Copyright 2000, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Brent Hueth, 2000. "The Goals of U.S. Agricultural Policy: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(1), pages 14-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:82:y:2000:i:1:p:14-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/0002-9092.00002
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce Gardner, 1983. "Efficient Redistribution through Commodity Markets," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 65(2), pages 225-234.
    2. Bourgeon, Jean-Marc & Jayet, Pierre-Alain & Picard, Pierre, 1995. "An incentive approach to land set-aside programs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1487-1509, October.
    3. Julian M. Alston & Brian H. Hurd, 1990. "Some Neglected Social Costs of Government Spending in Farm Programs," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(1), pages 149-156.
    4. Lewis, Tracy R. & Feenstra, Robert & Ware, Roger, 1989. "Eliminating price supports : A political economy perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 159-185, November.
    5. Robert G. Chambers, 1992. "On the Design of Agricultural Policy Mechanisms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(3), pages 646-654.
    6. Rodney B.W. Smith, 1995. "The Conservation Reserve Program as a Least-Cost Land Retirement Mechanism," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 77(1), pages 93-105.
    7. Guesnerie, Roger & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1984. "A complete solution to a class of principal-agent problems with an application to the control of a self-managed firm," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 329-369, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bullock, David S. & Salhofer, Klaus, 2003. "Judging agricultural policies: a survey," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 225-243, May.
    2. Larkin, Sherry L. & Keithly, Walter R., Jr. & Adams, Charles M. & Kazmierczak, Richard F., Jr., 2004. "Buyback Programs for Capacity Reduction in the U.S. Atlantic Shark Fishery," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 36(2), pages 1-16, August.
    3. Hervé Guyomard & Alexandre Gohin & Chantal Le Mouël, 2001. "Instruments de soutien interne des revenus agricoles, effets de distorsion sur les échanges et multifonctionnalité de l'agriculture," Post-Print hal-01937091, HAL.
    4. de Lima, Daruichi Pereira & Fioriolli, José Carlos & Padula, Antonio Domingos & Pumi, Guilherme, 2018. "The impact of Chinese imports of soybean on port infrastructure in Brazil: A study based on the concept of the “Bullwhip Effect”," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 55-76.
    5. Bontems, Philippe, 2008. "On the optimal design of income support and agri-environmental regulation," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6246, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Bulut, Harun, 2017. "Managing Catastrophic Risk in Agriculture through Ex Ante Subsidized Insurance or Ex Post Disaster Aid," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 42(3), September.
    7. Feng, Hongli, 2007. "Green payments and dual policy goals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 323-335, November.
    8. Bulut, Harun & Collins, Keith J., 2013. "Political Economy of Crop Insurance Risk Subsidies under Imperfect Information," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150577, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Gohin, Alexandre & Guyomard, Herve & Le Mouel, Chantal, 2001. "Promoting Multifunctionality While Minimizing Trade Distortion Effects: The Relative Merits Of Traditional Policy Instruments," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20468, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    10. Crepin, Anne-Sophie, 2005. "Incentives for wetland creation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 598-616, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hueth, Brent, 1998. "Target Prices, Payment Limits And Non-Market Concerns In The Design Of U.S. Agricultural Policy," 1998 Annual meeting, August 2-5, Salt Lake City, UT 20992, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    2. Alston, Julian M. & Smith, Vincent H. & Acquaye, Albert & Hosseini, Safdar, 1999. "Least-cost cheap-food policies: some implications of international food aid," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 191-201, May.
    3. White, Benedict & Raguragavan, Jananee & Chambers, Robert G., 2007. "Agri-environmental Regulation on the Back of a Data Envelopment Analysis," 81st Annual Conference, April 2-4, 2007, Reading University, UK 7963, Agricultural Economics Society.
    4. Raguragavan, Jananee & White, Ben & Chambers, Robert C., 2006. "Contracts for Land Retirement under Asymmetric Information," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 174722, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    5. Lichtenberg, Erik, 2002. "Agriculture and the environment," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1249-1313, Elsevier.
    6. de Gorter, Harry, 2008. "Explaining Inefficient Policy Instruments," Agricultural Distortions Working Paper Series 48638, World Bank.
    7. Bullock, David S. & Salhofer, Klaus, 2003. "Judging agricultural policies: a survey," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 225-243, May.
    8. Chambers, Robert G., 1994. "National Agricultural Policies in a Free-Trade Area," Working Papers 197797, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    9. Sheriff, Glenn, 2008. "Optimal environmental regulation of politically influential sectors with asymmetric information," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 72-89, January.
    10. Harvey, David R., 2003. "Policy Dependency And Reform: Economic Gains Versus Political Pains," 2003 Annual Meeting, August 16-22, 2003, Durban, South Africa 25865, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Yano, Yuki & Blandford, David, 2008. "Use of Penalties and Rewards in Agri-Environmental Policy," 82nd Annual Conference, March 31 - April 2, 2008, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, UK 36873, Agricultural Economics Society.
    12. Bullock, D. S. & Salhofer, K., 1998. "Measuring the social costs of suboptimal combinations of policy instruments: A general framework and an example," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 249-259, May.
    13. Wu, JunJie & Babcock, Bruce A., 1995. "Optimal Design Of A Voluntary Green Payment Program Under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 20(2), pages 1-12, December.
    14. baharumshah, ahmad, 1992. "Income Redistribution Through Commodity Programmes and the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 25(June), pages 47-61.
    15. Giannakas, Konstantinos, 2009. "The Normative Efficiency Ranking of Output and Export Subsidies under Costly and Imperfect Enforcement," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 10(1).
    16. Ozanne, Adam & White, Benedict, 2008. "Hidden action, risk aversion and variable fines in agri-environmental schemes," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 52(2), pages 1-10.
    17. Edwards, Geoff & Fraser, Iain, 2001. "Reconsidering agri-environmental policy permitted by the Uruguay round agreement," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 313-326, May.
    18. Salhofer, K., 1996. "Efficient income redistribution for a small country using optimal combined instruments," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 191-199, February.
    19. Ferraro, Paul J., 2008. "Asymmetric information and contract design for payments for environmental services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 810-821, May.
    20. Sheriff, Glenn, 2006. "Empirical Calibration of a Least-Cost Conservation Reserve Program," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21420, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:82:y:2000:i:1:p:14-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.