The redistributive effects of agricultural policy on Scottish farm incomes

This paper focuses on the measurement of the redistributive effects of agricultural policy, proposing measures to characterise and quantify these effects that are based on the change in absolute value of the Gini coefficient. An illustrative study shows that the distribution of support in Scotland in 1999/2000 was regressive with respect to pre-support farm incomes. Nevertheless, the provision of support would have had an equalising effect on farm incomes but for the resulting changes in the ranking of farms within the income distribution. Reranking not only makes ‘coupled’ support policies ineffective but also inefficient as redistributive instruments.