Path dependence is a phenomenon which can also be observed in agriculture. Especially structures in German dairy farming are very heterogeneous. The abolishment of the milk quota system in 2015 offers opportunities and challenges for dairy farmers at the same time. Our research aim is to find...

Spatially dispersed production and processing, endemic for most agricultural or renewable resource markets, causes oligopsonistic competition. The possibility and use of spatial price discrimination in these markets is well documented. It is also well known that the location of processors...

Within the reformed CAP, Germany decided to support small and young farmers by higher hectare payments. Because of heterogeneous farm structures with smaller farms in the south and large in the east, this causes regional redistributions. Agent-based simulations show that these policies create...

In recent years, the dairy sector has been exposed to strong changes in general conditions and extreme fluctuations in milk prices. Farmers and lobbyists have therefore asked politicians for additional market regulation. In this paper an agent-based real options market model is developed, which...

Replaced with revised version of paper 02/22/08.

Although important, the spatial dimension is often neglected in studies of market power and competition in agricultural markets. This paper investigates spatial competition for raw milk between dairies under the presence of marketing cooperatives. Since observed in reality, our model is based on...

Economies of scale and scope are often not exploited in Western agriculture. A general reason is probably that various types of transaction costs limit coordination among farmers. A more specific explanation is that coordination on land markets or machinery cooperation is difficult to achieve...

For models to have an impact on policy-making, they need to be used. Exploring the relationships between policy models, model uptake and policy dynamics is the core of this article. What particular role can policy models play in the analysis and design of policies? Which factors facilitate...

In this paper several decoupling options are evaluated concerning their impact on structural change especially on farm incomes and their surviving. Therefore, the agent-based model AgriPoliS was used and extended to account the income of leaving farms. This enables the comparison of future...