The Costs of the CAP

What are the effects of the CAP? Professor Thompson of Aberdeen University analyses the costs of the Common Agricultural Policy.     

The CAP and the Economics of Regulation

Are the effects of regulation always bad? Catherine Blight of the University of Edinburgh argues that in certain circumstances regulation can offer a ‘second-best’ solution.     

a students'guide to the CAP

Linda Whetstone, farmer and economist, gives a brief account of the ill-effects of the Common Agricultural Policy. Is there nothing good to say about the CAP - only that it has increased the availability of supplies but at enormous cost?     

Liberating Farming from the CAP

Global food producers face severe challenges in feeding the world's population at affordable prices. It is therefore essential that EU agricultural policy now focuses on maximising the Community's food production. This is only likely to be achieved if direct income payments are rapidly phased out allowing the industry to restructure, which will involve the concentration of production on larger‐scale farms.     

Agricultural incomes and the CAP

Concern with the living standards of farmers is central to the CAP yet it demonstrates the muddled objectives, inappropriate indicators and misdirected interventions that are the stuff of analysts' worst nightmares. As a consequence, the performance of the CAP in terms of this fundamental aim has, in all likelihood, been very poor. Attempts to reorientate the CAP to be more in line with its declared objectives face enormous vested interests in the agricultural industry and among policy-makers.     

Earn Votes by Cutting the CAP

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) survives despite unprecedented popular opposition in all countries, Linda Whetstone (above), of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, suggests drastic liberalization would bring political reward.     

The CAP: History and attempts at reform

This article outlines the economic consequences of the CAP, including the high level of protection, the burdens on consumers, taxpayers and the EU budget, environmental damage, the harm to international trading relations, and the failure to raise farmers' incomes. The numerous unsuccessful attempts at reform from 1968 to 1999 are described. Finally, some of the lessons of the reform attempts are drawn, including the apparent political impossibility of reducing farm support and bureaucratic intervention once it is in place.     

Part-time employment and industrial relations developments in the EEC*

Voluntary part-time work is now an established feature of EEC labour markets. In this article the author discusses the issues surrounding the Council's directive on voluntary part-time work and argues that it represents an acknowledgement by governments, employers and trade unions that part-time workers do not constitute a part of the marginal labour force.     

Trade liberalisation and CAP reform in the EU

Europe has underperformed relative to its peers and to its own previous performance over the last two decades. That underperformance reflects a range of factors, from structural rigidities in labour and capital markets, to inappropriate macroeconomic policy. But one set of policy measures that could contribute to improved economic performance in the future is trade liberalisation and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This article examines the benefits that could accrue to the UK, EU and global economies from the liberalisation of trade in goods and from the replacement of the current CAP with other, more productive forms of spending. It finds that the current barriers to trade in the EU, and the resources dedicated to the maintenance of the CAP, are set to cost the EU some 2% of GDP by 2015 if they remain in place. Moreover, this cost falls disproportionately on the poorer members of society.     

The CAP: whence it came, where it should go

By the end of the 1970s the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) had achieved its aim of satisfying the Community's needs for basic foodstuffs. Farmers have since sought to justify continued high levels of support by arguing that only a large population of farmers can deliver the countryside society wants and provide the backbone of the rural economy. Neither justification stands up to analysis. Only by phasing-out production-related support and accepting the accompanying restructuring can the industry's efficiency and effectiveness be improved to the point where it can compete on its own merits in world markets.     

The failure of CAP reform: a public choice analysis1

This paper uses public choice theories to explain why agricultural subsidies were centralised and why this hinders reform. It shows that the Commission is not responsible for the expansion of the CAP by arguing that budget‐maximising behaviour is irrational in the circumstances and that bureau shaping explains its stance on reform. The input process and the success of agricultural groups vis‐à‐vis consumer and taxpayer groups is explained using both the pluralist and Olsonian account of interest group politics. The conclusion analyses the latest difficulties in achieving reform at Berlin and the prospects for reform.     

EEC双通道健康度评估方法研究

为了解决航空发动机双通道电子控制器(EEC)两个通道均发生故障时如何评估通道健康度,从而选择主控通道的问题,论文提出了基于逆模型计算发动机推力敏感度的方法,量化不同信号故障对发动机推力的影响程度,依据推力敏感度来评估双通道健康度,协助主控通道选择,最终提高系统的安全性。     

On East-West Economic relations: Does EEC discriminate?

Conclucions The field is still wide open for all kinds of speculations about the content of future EEC discriminations against the communist countries, but so far there is very little substance to the accusations that EEC is discriminating against them. Neither strategic export controls nor credit discrimination seems to have been affected at all by the creation of EEC. On non-oil products a few individual cases of protection can be cited, and the consultation procedure may conceal some discrimination. But it is important to stress that the reasons for this discrimination are of the same protectionist nature as those behind the chicken war and other protectionist measures against USA, EFTA and other third nations. That the procedures are different-consultations and quotas against the communists and mainly tariff protection against the Western nations-is motivated more by the communist state trading system and its consequences than by special EEC policies.The only case where some EEC discrimination for non-commercial, political reasons can be suspected is for oil and oil products. The present strict mutual scrutiny of the import policies of the different member countries is likely to continue and to develop into some form of common policy, where security considerations may influence the setting of upper import limits of Soviet oil. But so long as this policy is not made official it is impossible to pinpoint any discrimination.In summary it can be said that the communist accusations, implying that EEC constitutes an endeavour to hurt the Soviet Union and the socialist camp through a discriminatory trade policy, are based more on the possibility that such a discrimination can come into existence than on any evidence that it actually has done so. These accusations are in fact very much akin to the Western exaggerations of actual Soviet economic warfare, based on the fact that the Soviet trade system indeed makes it possible to hide any kind of political warfare considerations inside the system.NOTE: The present article does not deal explicitly with economic planning problems or the socialist countries. However, we think the political problems discussed in this article are an interesting aspect of the relations between centrally planned economies and the market economies.

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利用抗爆间室销毁废起爆弹的安全技术措施探讨

为了安全高效大规模销毁废弃起爆弹,对周围环境影响最小,在原导爆索生产工房的抗爆间室场地上,采用烧毁法进行销毁。在确定销毁方案前,首先对废起爆弹的燃烧性质和殉爆距离进行了试验,确保在烧毁过程中不会出现燃烧转爆轰的现象。分析在销毁过程中可能出现的危险因素,采取相应的安全技术措施予以防范。整个销毁过程没有出现安全事故,也确保了操作人员的职业健康。顺利完成了销毁任务,为同类型的工程提供了借鉴。     

世界本就如此

一个小孩正在河边走着,忽然看到水边有一只陷在网里的鳄鱼。鳄鱼也看到了男孩,求道：“你能可怜可怜我,把我救出去吗？     

How Right to Work Is Destroying the American Labor Movement: From the Ku Klux Klan to the Tea Party

This essay examines recent efforts to enact right to work laws and analyzes the impact of such laws on union development. The argument is that right to work is an invidious anomaly in federal collective bargaining policy, and Section 14(b) should be eliminated from the National Labor Relations Act. Proponents of right to work legislation claim that such laws promote economic development, but the evidence for that claim is unconvincing. Alternatively, supporters of the legislation assert that it promotes individual liberties in our market economy. Opponents of right to work challenge the normative dimension of right to work as an empty ideology that cannot withstand critical scrutiny. Right to work is inimical to the economic and social interests of American workers.     

基于CAP视角下的地方政府内部执行力提升机制研究

本文基于对CAP基本理论的分析,结合对地方政府内部执行力存在问题的研究,寻求提升我国地方政府执行力的有效机制,以推动政府更好地转变职能,促进中央与地方及整个社会的和谐发展。     

中超上演“中国式离婚” 中国足球路在何方?

观众为何对中国足球缺乏兴趣?赞助商为何对中国足球缺乏信心?球会为何对中国足协缺乏信任?2005年中超还会爆出什么新的“话题”? 中国足球还能过“小康”生活吗?