The impact of transfers to agriculture through the German tax system

Abstract

German tax legislation has been used as a vehicle for channeling considerable transfers into the farm sector for many years. The purpose of this paper is to show its impact on farms of different sizes and branches of production. The results suggest that a large proportion of the German farmers receive transfers that amount to nearly half of their profit. It is demonstrated that the benefits are not equally distributed among different types of farms and not neutral with regard to the structure of inputs. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press.