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Abstract
Spanish accession to the European Comminity ( EC) will lead to many changes
in Spain's agricultural sector. Predicting the nature of these changes is difficult
because the new policy regime differs significantly from historic Spanish policies.
In this paper, conventional econometric models of the Spanish rice sector are
constrated with a model designed specifically to reflect the pervasive impact of
Spanish rice policies. This policy model predicts the historical evolution of production,
consumption and trade more accurately than the conventional models.
However, the policy model cannot be used to predict the impact of the radical
policy changes in Spain resulting from the introduction of the EC rice regime
because the historical relationships no longer hold. It is argued that alternative
approaches relying more on institutional analysis and expert opinion need to be
developed to understand the future of the Spanish rice sector.