Download Presentation 2C - Trinity College Dublin

Farm Household Income:
Towards Better Informed Policies
(OECD, October 2004)
SS Economics of Food Markets
Kevin Lynch
23rd October 2007
Trinity College, Dublin
Why is information needed?
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Wanted: A new household model of
rural and farm families.
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New classification : business/ household
characteristics not commodity
Two household farm problem
Policy evaluation in times of reform
Variety of households (panel data)
What information is available?
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No comprehensive or consistent
measure of rural household incomes
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Micro/macro problems, international &
intertemporal comparisons
FADN: data on size, composition & costs
Tax reciepts: different provisions
Household Surveys: not enough farms
Obstacles to collecting this information
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Administrative: costs (speed of
revision), privacy, burden on
participants
Technical: representation, wealth, panel
composition
Political: non-compliance, vested
interests
How can these be overcome?
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Accountability of public funds
Counting costs from programme
budgets
Cost: IT, multiple use, wider scope and
applications – private sector?
Best practice: IT, standardised
estimators
How would such information help
policy makers?
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To assess the nature, cause and extent
of income problems. Farm/non-farm
income
Measurable targets for policy
New policy design for specific problems
Policy evaluation
Better national models
Replacing incomplete irrelevant data
Summary and Outlook
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Reliable data needed to measure policy
effectiveness
Survey costs<policy costs
Technical problems are relatively minor
Co-operation between agents and
countries is essential