ABSTRACT

Existing research demonstrates why farmers demand subsidies, but remains ambiguous as to why consumers/taxpayers support or rather do not oppose such subsidies. We approach this puzzle from two angles: how sensitive are citizens to cost implications of agricultural subsidies, and what is their “value function” with respect to agricultural policy? We argue that farm subsidies, besides benefiting farmers, promise to generate an array of non-market goods that serve various interests in society and thus receive strong support overall. To test our argument, we conducted conjoint survey experiments in two countries: Switzerland and the United States. Our results show that while cost implications only marginally reduce support for subsidies, support is positively affected by the allocation of subsidies to various policy goals, such as guaranteeing food security and enhancing animal welfare. These findings suggest that individual-level support for agricultural subsidies does not result from a lack of information, but reflect genuine appreciation of the perceived multi-functionality of agricultural subsidies.

摘要

现有研究证明了农民要求补贴的原因，但对于消费者/纳税人为什么支持或不反对此类补贴仍不明确。我们从两个角度处理这个难题：公民对农业补贴的成本影响有多敏感，他们对农业政策的“价值函数”是什么？我们认为，农业补贴除了使农民受益之外，还承诺产生一系列服务于社会各种利益的非市场商品，从而得到总体上的大力支持。为了验证我们的论点，我们在两个国家进行了联合调查实验：瑞士和美国。我们的结果表明，虽然成本影响只是略微减少了对补贴的支持，但对各种政策目标的补贴分配对支持产生了积极影响，例如保证食品安全和提高动物福利。这些研究结果表明，个人层面对农业补贴的支持并不是由于缺乏信息，而是反映了对农业补贴多功能性的真正理解。