First published in 1997 in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and its agricultural policies, these editors presented a series of ten related articles on the transition to post-communist, more privatised agricultural policies, each specialising in a specific region of Central and Eastern Europe. Resulting from a research network, this volume features a range of contributors, including those preparing PhDs, former governmental advisors and specialists in agricultural economics, food policy and statistics. The chapters cover Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Solvenia, and the Former Soviet Union, along with a comparative analysis. The contributors focus on three key issues of reform: the collection of detailed data, the collection of information on factors influencing the progress and completion of reform and explaining the results of privatisation and land reform, with a particular emphasis on the first two elements. This volume is well-suited to policy makers, analysists and researchers.

First published in 1997, this volume responds to the challenges faced in post-Communist Eastern Europe in the privatization and decollectivisation of agriculture. The contributors feature specialists in agriculture, finance, economics and political science. They begin with discussions on the political economy of privatization and a historical overview and continue with thoughts on agricultural decollectivization in twelve countries across Eastern Europe including Albania, the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary. The project reflects the basic framework of endogenous institutional change and policy analysis, and uses a political economy framework to explain and interpret these agricultural trends.

After five years of debates, consultations and negotiations, the European institutions reached an agreement in 2013 on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the 2014-2020 period. The outcome has major implications for the EU's budget and farmers' incomes, but also for Europe's environment, its contribution to global climate change and to food security in the EU and in the world. It was decided to spend more than EURO400 billion during the rest of the decade on the CAP. The official claims are that the new CAP will take better account of society's expectations and lead to far-reaching changes by making subsidies fairer and 'greener' and making the CAP more efficient. It is also asserted that the CAP will play a key part in achieving the overall objective of promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. However, there is significant scepticism about these claims and disappointment with the outcome of the decision-making, the first in which the European Parliament was involved under the co-decision procedure. In contrast to earlier reforms where more substantive changes were made to the CAP, the factors that induced the policy discussions in 2008-13 and those that influenced the decision-making did not reinforce each other. On the contrary, they sometimes counteracted one another, yielding an 'imperfect storm' as it were, resulting in more status quo and fewer changes. This book discusses the outcome of the decision-making and the factors that influenced the policy choices and decisions. It brings together contributions from leading academics from various disciplines and policy-makers, and key participants in the process from the European Commission and the European Parliament.

First published in 1997 in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and its agricultural policies, these editors presented a series of ten related articles on the transition to post-communist, more privatised agricultural policies, each specialising in a specific region of Central and Eastern Europe. Resulting from a research network, this volume features a range of contributors, including those preparing PhDs, former governmental advisors and specialists in agricultural economics, food policy and statistics. The chapters cover Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Solvenia, and the Former Soviet Union, along with a comparative analysis. The contributors focus on three key issues of reform: the collection of detailed data, the collection of information on factors influencing the progress and completion of reform and explaining the results of privatisation and land reform, with a particular emphasis on the first two elements. This volume is well-suited to policy makers, analysists and researchers.

First published in 1997, this volume responds to the challenges faced in post-Communist Eastern Europe in the privatization and decollectivisation of agriculture. The contributors feature specialists in agriculture, finance, economics and political science. They begin with discussions on the political economy of privatization and a historical overview and continue with thoughts on agricultural decollectivization in twelve countries across Eastern Europe including Albania, the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary. The project reflects the basic framework of endogenous institutional change and policy analysis, and uses a political economy framework to explain and interpret these agricultural trends.

Beer has been consumed across the globe for centuries and was the drink of choice in many ancient societies. Today it is the most important alcoholic drink worldwide, in terms of volume and value. The largest brewing companies have developed into global multinationals, and the beer market has enjoyed strong growth in emerging economies, but there has been a substantial decline of beer consumption in traditional markets and a shift to new products. There is close interaction between governments and markets in the beer industry. For centuries, taxes on beer or its raw materials have been a major source of tax revenue and governments have regulated the beer industry for reasons related to quality, health, and competition. This book is the first economic analysis of the beer market and brewing industry. The introduction provides an economic history of beer, from monasteries in the early Middle Ages to the recent 'microbrewery movement', whilst other chapters consider whether people drink more beer during recessions, the effect of television on local breweries, and what makes a country a 'beer drinking' nation. It comprises a comprehensive and unique set of economic research and analysis on the economics of beer and brewing and covers economic history and development, supply and demand, trade and investment, geography and scale economies, technology and innovation, health and nutrition, quantity and quality, industrial organization and competition, taxation and regulation, and regional beer market developments.

The emergence of China as a global economic powerhouse, the uncertain path of Russia towards a market economy, and the integration of ten Central and Eastern European countries into the European Union (EU) have occupied the minds and agendas of many policy-makers, business leaders and scholars from around the world at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Twenty years ago these developments were unimaginable. The impact of these changes is so vast that the importance of understanding the forces that unleashed this process, how these changes became possible, and what the lessons are for other developing countries, cannot be overestimated. This book is the first effort to analyze the economics and politics of agricultural reforms by comparing the reform processes, their causes and their effects across this vast region. The authors draw on a vast set of studies and new data, which compare reforms and economic impacts in more than 25 countries, to come up with a series of conclusions and implications on the role of economic reforms in growth, and the importance of initial conditions and political constraints in explaining the choices that were made and their effects. The book analyzes some of the most successful sets of agricultural policies in history that have lifted people out of poverty, raising productivity and incomes by staggering amounts. At the same time the book explains the reasons behind dramatic failures in policy processes and reforms that caused hunger, poverty and which had devastating effects on economic growth and development for millions of other people.