Summary

This paper provides a general framework for measuring farm support when both price and quantity policy instruments are used jointly. It is based on duality theory in production, i.e., on profit functions corresponding to different (dis-)equilibrium situations. Total Support is decomposed into a Neutral com-ponent and a Distorting part related to shadow prices of fixed quantities. An application to the reduction in support to the EC farm sector from 1986 to 1988 suggests that the EC could claim an extra 4.4 billion ECU of'credit ' if the Distorting concept had been used in the GATT. Limitations of quotas as second-best policies are pointed out