Publications > Cahiers (English)> N° 63, 2nd term 2002

• Member states positions and voting coalitions on the Agenda 2000 CAP Reform, S. KATRANIDIS, A. VAKROU
• Primary demand for red meats in the United Kingdom, P. FOUSEKIS, B. J. REVELL texte au format PDF
• L’organisation des achats alimentaires, G. LARMET
  [Organization of food purchases]
  

COMPTES RENDUS DE LECTURE

L.-P. MAHÉ and F. ORTALO-MAGNÉ, La politique agricole : un modèle européen, by W. Legg ; B. DECALUWÉ, A. MARTENS and L. SAVARD, La politique économique du développement et les modèles d’équilibre général calculable, by A.-S. Robilliard

Member states positions and voting coalitions on the Agenda 2000 CAP Reforms

Stelios KATRANIDIS*, Alexandra VAKROU** (** University of Macedonia, Department of Economic Science, Egnatia St. 156, 540 06 Thessaloniki, Greece - e-mail: katranid@uom.gr ** National Agricultural Research Foundation, 5 Parthenonos St., 141 22 Neo Heraklio, Attiki, Greece. Current address: Detached National Expert, European Commission, DG-Environment, 1049 Brussels, Belgium - e-mail: Alexandra.Vakrou@cec.eu.int)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 63, 2002, pp 5-29

Summary - The EU policy reforms introduced under Agenda 2000 included several modifications for the existing CAP agreement. The member states had expressed in an earlier stage of communications their opinions towards the Commission's proposals and this initiated a negotiation period that finalized with the 1999 Berlin agreement. The present study is supported within the New Political Economy Framework and explores the creation of inter-state groups with similar positions and coalitions at EU-supranational level. It employs cluster analysis to identify groups of countries that have stated similar positions regarding the proposed reforms and to define the role that these groups played in reaching an agreement on the Agenda 2000 proposals through the formation of voting majorities or blocking minorities.

lKey-words : Agenda 2000, CAP, EU member states, new political economy, cluster analysis.

Panos FOUSEKIS*, Brian J. REVELL** (* Agricultural University of Athens, Department of Agricultural Economics, Iera Odos 75, Athens, Greece - e-mail: p.fousekis@aua.gr
** School of Management, Harper Adams University College, Newport, TF 10 8NB, Shropshire, United Kingdom e-mail: bjrevell@harper-adams.ac.uk)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 63, 2002, pp 31-50

Summary - Flexible differential inverse demand systems have been employed in this paper to analyse the price formation process and to test hypotheses about the structure of farm level demand for red meats (pigmeat, beef and lamb) in the UK . The empirical results suggest that the Inverse Almost Ideal Differential Demand System (AIIDS) performs better than the competing systems. They also suggest that adverse publicity and "meat scares" during 1989 to 1998, particularly relating to BSE, affected the components of the price formation. The parameter estimates of the selected model have been used to calculate scale and price flexibilities and Allais intensities of interaction for the three meat species.

Key-words : price formation, red meats, "meat scares", BSE, United Kingdom.

L’organisation des achats alimentaires
[Organization of food purchases]

Gwenaël LARMET* (* CNAF, 23, rue Daviel, 75634 Paris cedex 13 - e-mail : gwenael.larmet@cnaf.cnafmail.fr)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 63, 2002, pp 51-84

Summary - What are the specificities of the customers of each food shop ? Food purchases suppose a management of the household budget, but also an organization of the frequency of purchases, which leads to a third problem : who, in the couple, goes shopping ? Are the constraints of the living conditions (proximity of offer, available income and time) sufficient to account for the organization of the provisioning ? Using French national food surveys and time budget surveys, we show that if these surveys tend to define taste as a consumption habit, it is because the organization of food purchases is mainly determined by supply. But we also show that taste defined as a norm plays a statistically significant part. This leads us to regard food purchases not only as a problem of budget and logistics managing, but also as a personal activity, implying self-respect, reputation and social status. The structure of supply acts directly on the organization of the purchases through the proximity of each different shop. Thus, in terms of proximity, supermarkets compete with hypermarkets and grocers, but these last two shops do not compete with each other. The supply also acts by forming habits specific to each type of town and each generation. On the side of demand, the location of purchases depends on the available resources and internalized norms. Prices, schedules and possibilities of grouping purchases induce different types of rationalities according to the available time, the size of the household and its income. The sexual division of housework in a couple depends on available time, but mainly on norms linked to social status and generation. The organization of food provisioning depends on the importance attached to domestic life and the degree in which it contributes to self-respect and reputation. Many variables (income, household structure, social category, having a job or not) can be interpreted at the same time as indicators of resources and as indicators of norms. It is thus impossible to know the own effect of material constraints or normative constraints in the consumers'behavior.

Key-words : food shopping places, social differentiation, taste.