The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union has been in a process of reform since the early 1990s. As a result of reforms, agricultural market regulations have become more liberal and direct payments have been introduced which are to a large extent decoupled from production. In...

After an extended process of reform the European Union has introduced direct payments to farmers which are decoupled from production decisions as a central element of its Common Agricultural Policy. They are also referred to as Single Farm Payments. In this paper we analyze the production and...

Direct payments maintain a fundamental role in the future CAP, since they still absorb a high share of the CAP budget. However, despite some confirmations (mainly related to internal convergence, types of interventions and the role of genuine/active farmers), several relevant innovations (e.g.,...