Workshop Budget Expenditures and Government Support for Agriculture: Approaches and Estimates
Of 15 October 2012, the Agricultural Policy Department of the Gaidar Institute held a workshop on the ways to estimate budget expenditures and government support of agriculture.
The discussion focused on the issues of estimating budget expenditures allocated to agriculture, the results of government support for agriculture estimated by the OECD methodology, and comparative analysis of different estimation methods.
The Department’s Head Natalia Shagaida demonstrated how the budget classification system applied in Russia complicates the calculation not only of the level of support of agricultural producers, but also of the overall agricultural budget. After this country’s accession to the WTO there has arisen the necessity to control the level of support with due regard for the WTO classification of support measures. However the estimations based on the WTO classification involve many assumptions because the budget classification is not designed to perform such a task. As a result, the agricultural budget and the parameters of support for agricultural producers may be calculated only with some inevitable errors.
Professor, Doctor of Economic Sciences V. Ya. Uzun, on the basis of a comparison between the government policies aimed at supporting agriculture in Russia, the EU, and the USA, pointed out the specific features of the Russian policy and analyzed the way these features influence the functioning of agriculture under the conditions imposed by the WTO. In contrast to the EU and the USA, where agricultural producers are supported in the main by allocations from government budgets, in Russia the bulk of support for agricultural producers comes from food consumers, and not from the state budget. Increased prices due to import duties, in their turn, increase the share of the cost of food in the budgets of households, especially those with lowest incomes. Dr. Uzun also demonstrated which commodities are quite competitive on the world market – and so their producers will not be faced with any problems after Russia’s accession to the WTO, and which will need government support so as not to lose their production volume achieved by 2012.
Candidate of Economic Sciences N. A. Karlova in her report demonstrated that different methods of supporting agriculture are oriented towards different goals, and so the resulting estimates are incomparable.
Paper Presentations:
The Department’s Head Natalia Shagaida demonstrated how the budget classification system applied in Russia complicates the calculation not only of the level of support of agricultural producers, but also of the overall agricultural budget. After this country’s accession to the WTO there has arisen the necessity to control the level of support with due regard for the WTO classification of support measures. However the estimations based on the WTO classification involve many assumptions because the budget classification is not designed to perform such a task. As a result, the agricultural budget and the parameters of support for agricultural producers may be calculated only with some inevitable errors.
Professor, Doctor of Economic Sciences V. Ya. Uzun, on the basis of a comparison between the government policies aimed at supporting agriculture in Russia, the EU, and the USA, pointed out the specific features of the Russian policy and analyzed the way these features influence the functioning of agriculture under the conditions imposed by the WTO. In contrast to the EU and the USA, where agricultural producers are supported in the main by allocations from government budgets, in Russia the bulk of support for agricultural producers comes from food consumers, and not from the state budget. Increased prices due to import duties, in their turn, increase the share of the cost of food in the budgets of households, especially those with lowest incomes. Dr. Uzun also demonstrated which commodities are quite competitive on the world market – and so their producers will not be faced with any problems after Russia’s accession to the WTO, and which will need government support so as not to lose their production volume achieved by 2012.
Candidate of Economic Sciences N. A. Karlova in her report demonstrated that different methods of supporting agriculture are oriented towards different goals, and so the resulting estimates are incomparable.
Paper Presentations:
- N. Shagaida. Budget Expenditures and Government Support for Agriculture: Approaches and Estimates >>>
- V Uzun. Specificities of Russia’s Policy Aimed at Support for Agriculture and the Need for Its Fundamental Adjustment After Her Accession to the WTO >>>
- N. Karlova. Comparative Analysis of the Methods of Estimating Expenditures on Support for Agriculture >>>