Recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy has led to the decoupling of direct payments to farmers from production. This policy change is expected to make farmers’ production decisions more market oriented as their subsidy revenue maximization objectives become profit maximizing...

Under the Mac Sharry and Agenda 2000 reforms, direct payments comprised a significant portion of farmers' income in the EU. Farmers had to engage in production to receive these payments but the payments were relatively risk-free and therefore risk may not have played an important role in the...

Using euro area firm-level data since the recent financial crisis, we test whether bank lending constrained small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to use or apply for alternative external finance including trade credit, informal lending, loans from other companies, market...