The landscape impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy: a RDD evaluation of Ecological Focus Areas

Valentin Cocco (PSAE), joint with François Bareille

The 2015–2022 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) conditioned farmers’ subsidies on the presence of Ecological Focus Areas (EFA) within their farm holdings to promote diversified agricultural landscapes. However, the additionality of this measure remains largely debated. We combine parcel-level land use data (RPG) with spatially explicit hedgerow data (BD Haies) and exploit three exemption thresholds in a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to assess farm-level land use arrangements. We present preliminary results, with a particular attention on addressing farmers’ manipulation of the running variable.