The producer support estimate (the successor to the producer support equivalent) calculated by the OECD is widely used as an indicator of distortions created by agricultural policies. In this paper we demonstrate that changes in the relative (percentage) PSE are not an accurate indicator of the...

This paper summarises a decade of research by the authors into the welfare economic foundations for agricultural policy. The main results are that the levels of support to agriculture in rich developed countries like Norway are way out of proportion with what could conceivably be defended by...