IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jpolmo/v35y2013i4p638-651.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of agricultural policy reforms on income inequality in Swiss agriculture - An analysis for valley, hill and mountain regions

Author

Listed:
  • El Benni, Nadja
  • Finger, Robert

Abstract

Using FADN data, we analyse the development of income inequality in Swiss agriculture for the valley, hill and mountain regions over the period 1990–2009. While household income inequality remained stable, farm income inequality increased during this period. Estimated Gini elasticities show that household income inequality is reduced by off-farm income and direct payments but is increased by market income. Both, the introduction of area-based direct payments in 1992 and the abandonment of farm household payments in 1999 have regional different effects. Agricultural policy should opt for measures that comply with regional requirements, as current direct payments cannot avoid that income from farming is drifting further apart.

Suggested Citation

  • El Benni, Nadja & Finger, Robert, 2013. "The effect of agricultural policy reforms on income inequality in Swiss agriculture - An analysis for valley, hill and mountain regions," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 638-651.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:35:y:2013:i:4:p:638-651
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2012.03.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161893812000385
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2012.03.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Schenker N. & Gentleman J. F., 2001. "On Judging the Significance of Differences by Examining the Overlap Between Confidence Intervals," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 55, pages 182-186, August.
    2. Miljkovic, Dragan & Jin, Hyun J. & Paul, Rodney, 2008. "The role of productivity growth and farmers' income protection policies in the decline of relative farm prices in the United States," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 873-885.
    3. Fragoso, R. & Marques, C. & Lucas, M.R. & Martins, M.B. & Jorge, R., 2011. "The economic effects of common agricultural policy on Mediterranean montado/dehesa ecosystem," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 311-327, March.
    4. Mary Keeney, 2000. "The Distributional Impact of Direct Payments on Irish Farm Incomes," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 252-265, May.
    5. El Benni, Nadja & Mann, Stefan & Lehmann, Bernard, 2011. "Distributional effects of direct payments in Switzerland," 122nd Seminar, February 17-18, 2011, Ancona, Italy 99368, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Taylor, J. Edward, 1992. "Remittances and inequality reconsidered: Direct, indirect, and intertemporal effects," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 187-208, April.
    7. Chen, Chau-Nan & Tsaur, Tien-Wang & Rhai, Tong-Shieng, 1982. "The Gini Coefficient and Negative Income," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 473-478, November.
    8. Van de Ven, J., 2001. "Distributional Limits and GINI Coefficient," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 776, The University of Melbourne.
    9. Schmid, Erwin & Hofreither, Markus F. & Sinabell, Franz, 2006. "Impacts of CAP Instruments on the Distribution of Farm Incomes - Results for Austria," Discussion Papers DP-13-2006, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute for Sustainable Economic Development.
    10. Graham Pyatt & Chau-nan Chen & John Fei, 1980. "The Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 451-473.
    11. Park, Donghyun, 2001. "Recent trends in the global distribution of income," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 497-501, July.
    12. Miller, Tracy C., 1991. "Agricultural price policies and political interest group competition," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 489-513.
    13. Mishra, Ashok & El-Osta, Hisham & Gillespie, Jeffrey M., 2009. "Effect of agricultural policy on regional income inequality among farm households," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 325-340, May.
    14. Boisvert, Richard N. & Ranney, Christine K., 1990. "Accounting For The Importance Of Nonfarm Income On Farm Family Income Inequality In New York," Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-11, April.
    15. John C. H. Fei & Gustav Ranis & Shirley W. Y. Kuo, 1978. "Growth and the Family Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(1), pages 17-53.
    16. El-Osta, Hisham S. & Bernat, G. Andrew & Ahearn, Mary C., 1995. "Regional Differences in the Contribution of Off-Farm Work to Income Inequality," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 1-14, April.
    17. von Witzke, Harald & Noleppa, Steffen, 2007. "Agricultural and Trade Policy Reform and Inequality: The Distributive Effects of Direct Payments to German Farmers under the EU's New Common Agricultural Policy," Working Paper Series 10289, Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    18. Podder, N., 1995. "On the Relationship Between the Gini Goefficient and Income Elasticity," Papers 95-6, New South Wales - School of Economics.
    19. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    20. El-Osta, Hisham S. & Bernat, G. Andrew, Jr. & Ahearn, Mary Clare, 1995. "Regional Differences In The Contribution Of Off-Farm Work To Income Inequality," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 24(1), pages 1-14, April.
    21. Aristei, David & Perugini, Cristiano, 2010. "Preferences for redistribution and inequality in well-being across Europe," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 176-195, March.
    22. Lee, Jong-Eun, 2006. "Inequality and globalization in Europe," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 28(7), pages 791-796, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Severini, Simone & Tantari, Antonella, 2013. "The effect of the EU farm payments policy and its recent reform on farm income inequality," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 212-227.
    2. Severini, Simone & Tantari, Antonella, 2015. "The distributional impact of agricultural policy tools on Italian farm household incomes," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 124-135.
    3. Nitta, Atomu & Yamamoto, Yasutaka & Kondo, Katsunobu & Sawauchi, Daisuke, 2020. "Direct payments to Japanese farmers: Do they reduce rice income inequality? Lessons for other Asian countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 968-981.
    4. Nadja El Benni & Robert Finger & Stefan Mann & Bernard Lehmann, 2012. "The distributional effects of agricultural policy reforms in Switzerland," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 58(11), pages 497-509.
    5. Mishra, Ashok & El-Osta, Hisham & Gillespie, Jeffrey M., 2009. "Effect of agricultural policy on regional income inequality among farm households," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 325-340, May.
    6. Severini, Simone & Tantari, Antonella, 2014. "The contribution of different off-farm income sources and government payments to regional income inequality among farm households in Italy," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 3(2), pages 1-17, August.
    7. Sahrbacher, Amanda, 2012. "Impacts of CAP reforms on farm structures and performance disparities: An agent-based approach," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 65, number 65.
    8. Severini, Simone & Tantari, A., 2012. "How direct payments and their reform have affected farm income inequality in Italy?," 2012 First Congress, June 4-5, 2012, Trento, Italy 124099, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    9. Kimhi, Ayal, 2009. "Land Reform and Farm-Household Income Inequality: The Case of Georgia," Discussion Papers 54159, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    10. Stefano Ciliberti & Angelo Frascarelli, 2018. "The CAP 2013 reform of direct payments: redistributive effects and impacts on farm income concentration in Italy," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Simone Severini & Giuliano Di Tommaso & Robert Finger, 2019. "Effects of the Income Stabilization Tool on farm income level, variability and concentration in Italian agriculture," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, December.
    12. Ciliberti, Stefano & Frascarelli, Angelo, 2015. "The role of CAP in enhancing farm incomes: the redistributive effect of direct payments in Italy," 147th Seminar, October 7-8, 2015, Sofia, Bulgaria 212244, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. El-Osta, Hisham S. & Bernat, G. Andrew, Jr. & Ahearn, Mary Clare, 1995. "Regional Differences In The Contribution Of Off-Farm Work To Income Inequality," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 24(1), pages 1-14, April.
    14. Severini, Simone & Tantari, Antonella, 2014. "How do different off-farm income sources affect income inequality among farm households?," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182843, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Paul, Satya, 2004. "Income sources effects on inequality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 435-451, February.
    16. S. Severini & A. Tantari, 2015. "Which factors affect the distribution of direct payments among farmers in the EU Member States?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 25-48, February.
    17. Medeiros, Marcelo & Souza, Pedro H.G.F., 2013. "The State and income inequality in Brazil," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt584222f0, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    18. Magne Mogstad, 2007. "Measuring Income Inequality under Restricted Interpersonal Comparability," Discussion Papers 498, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    19. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    20. Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa & Orgiazzi, E., 2011. "GINI DP 12: Factor Components of Inequality. A Cross-Country Study," GINI Discussion Papers 12, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional income inequality; Agricultural policy reforms; Direct payments; Gini decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • Q00 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - General

    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:eee:jpolmo:v:35:y:2013:i:4:p:638-651. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505735 .

    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.