Economic policy incentives encouraging agricultural production: a comparative analysis of Lithuanian rural development programme for 2007-2013 and 2014-2020

Abstract

The new European Union's financial perspective for rural development policy started in 2014 bringing the need to assess the results of past policies and to design future rural development in line with new strategic objectives. While the Rural Development programme for Lithuania for 2014-2020 being still under development it is important to implement ex-ante evaluation of economic incentives being created (maintained) under these programmes in order to detect relative changes in economic policy incentives encouraging agricultural production in the future. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to define relative changes in economic policy incentives encouraging agricultural production being created by the structural support for agriculture under the Rural Development programme for Lithuania for 2014-2020. For that purpose measures aimed at support for business entities (producers) under the Rural Development programmes for 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 are compared. The results of the comparative analysis reveal that total support and its intensity is decreasing in the period 2014-2020 compared to that in the period 2007-2013. The decrease of support can induce lagging in structural changes or advancement in productivity as an option to overcome structural deficiencies.