Abstract
This article collated and interpreted data on land-based measures and capital investments support in Central Europe. Data collection is essential, due to more EU funds being distributed after 2020. Most evaluations focus on outcomes of agri-environmental measures within the most populous Member States. Unlike previous work, empirical data was hereby assessed on the public support of three measures of environmental concern to farmers (less favored area measure, capital investments, and agri-environmental measures). The study examined whether public goods are complementary. A prevailing focus was on spending for the farms in less favored areas, now renamed Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC). Cluster analysis was employed for seven countries out of 105 rural development programs (RDPs). The Countries include Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The average share of the wider ANC measures was 0.31 of the total public funds. Within Central Europe, Hungary sets aside the smallest share (0.17), whereas the Czech Republic and Austria introduced a slightly larger share (0.51). All RDPs identified Capital Investments in physical assets as one of the significant measures. The study found that public goods for biodiversity and landscapes were entailed in the ANC measures, although the extent of measure complementarity across all regions will require further investigation. Finally, unresolved questions about expenditure are highlighted.
Highlights
For several decades, rural community economics in Europe have been discussed in terms of public goods
Persuasive evidence has been built on the outcomes for biodiversity realized by the ANC3 and ANC1 measures, in tandem with the outcomes for competitiveness realized by the ANC2 Capital Investment support
The utility attributed to the stated Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) measures has been documented in regard to the essentiality of ANC measures in the time frame 2014–2020 as well as mid-term evaluation reports of the 2007–2013 rural development programs (RDPs) of Central Europe
Summary
Rural community economics in Europe have been discussed in terms of public goods. The answer is that public goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable to those concerns. A large body of work [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16] revolved around the impetus to define the term for budgets addressing environmental concerns of taxpayers. The definition of public goods inevitably began with the recognition that these goods embrace the non-rivalrous and non-excludable aspects. In practice, broadly encompass many environmental assets associated with agriculture and valued by society (landscapes, farmland biodiversity, water quality, soil functionality, rural viability, animal welfare, and aspects of food security). Defined public goods help to distinguish when state intervention can incentivize production of certain goods and services (landscapes, farmland biodiversity, water quality, soil functionality, rural viability, animal welfare, and aspects of food security). Doing so prevents issues of transaction costs, as scrutinized by the opponents of Polanyi and Granovetter [17,18]
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