The Incidence of Agricultural Subsidies on Rental Rates for Grassland

This paper examines the impact of agricultural subsidies on rental rates for grassland. In theory, the capitalization of subsidies into grassland rents has become increasingly important as a result of the decoupling of direct payments from production in 2005. The focus is on the pass-through of both coupled and decoupled direct payments on grassland rentals in Western Germany. The empirical investigation is based upon farm-level data of grassland rental rates from the six farm census surveys carried out between 2001 and 2013. The results of spatial econometric models show that landlords of grassland have benefited strongly from the decoupling of direct payments. For the period prior to the decoupling of direct payments, the estimates point to low capitalisation of the livestock payments into grassland rentals. For the period after decoupling, the estimations reveal a significant pass-through of direct payments to landowners, with the marginal capitalisation increasing over time. At the end of the observation period, after regional standardisation of the payments, the estimates show marginal capitalisation rates of 87–94 cents per additional premium euro, suggesting almost complete capitalisation of the funding into the rental price for grassland.