Objectives of this paper is to verify whether the relationship between the level of per capita income and the environment quality, for the Italian regions, follows the prescription of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), taking into account the contribution of agriculture and rural areas. The...

Policy for agricultural extension services (AES) has been revitalized during the last phases of rural development policies (2007/2013), to empower human capital in agriculture. A wider package of measures aiming at improving the supply of extension at farm level is foreseen and financial...

It is quite widely believed that well developed clusters are vehicles for competitiveness and innovation. In the paper we test a hypothesis that occurrence of strong clusters in a country’s agro-food sector is positively related to its international competitiveness. Using the European Cluster...

A better understanding of farmers' behaviour regarding agri-environment schemes (AES) can be one step towards further improving the schemes. To assess farmers' acceptance and perception of AES, the 'Theory of planned Behaviour' (TPB) was applied to identify factors influencing farmers'...

The European Commission is currently considering the introduction of income stabilisation tools as a means of stabilising farmers’ incomes throughout the European Union. One of the options is to use mutual insurance schemes. The objectives of this paper are to analyse the performance of mutual...

Risk management and income stabilization have been gaining increasing attention in the EU’s agricultural policy debate, also in connection to the recent proposal of a specific package of measures hypothesized in the ongoing CAP reform. The paper summarizes the current policy picture at EU and...

A better understanding of farmers' behaviour regarding agri-environment schemes (AES) can be one step towards further improving the schemes. To assess farmers' acceptance and perception of AES, the 'Theory of planned Behaviour' (TPB) was applied to identify factors influencing farmers'...

Foot and Mouth disease, like other epizootic outbreaks, can have wide and lasting impacts exceeding the agricultural field. Within Europe various ad hoc policies exist to cope with these consequences. In this paper we develop a dynamic CGE model allowing us to simulate a FMD outbreak, its...

In this paper we try to understand if it is possible to create a market for ecosystem services deriving from rural landscape and environmental conservation. First of all to do this we consider the results of some studies we conducted during last years about monetary and no-monetary environmental...

Three specific aspects of agricultural risk management are addressed 1. Recent developments in price volatility and yield risk 2. The role of policy: - Subsidized crop insurance with examples from the massive US program ($115 billion in liability in 2011) - The 2012 US Farm Bill, which is...