Estimating the impact of the French agroenvironmental schemes on agricultural practices by difference-in-difference matching

MOISA : UMR INRA 1110 Marchés, Organisations, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs, MONTPELLIER LAMETA : UMR INRA 1135 Laboratoire Montpelliérain d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, MONTPELLIERAgro-Environmental Schemes (AES) represent a growing part of agricultural policies in developed countries. This paper presents the first comprehensive disaggregated nation-wide estimation of the impact of these AES on agricultural practices. We estimate the causal effect of the AES on agricultural practices by using Difference-In-Difference Matching. We extend the literature by providing a theoretical underpinning and practical testing of the identification strategy on the one hand and we provide environmentally relevant, disaggregated and representative results on the other hand. The estimations rely on an original database created from paired statistical surveys and administrative files. The analysis shows that the impacts of the French AES are diverse. The impact of measures aiming at reducing fertilizer and pesticide quantities appear small, but our estimates suffers from a lack of precision. The impact of measures which aim at reducing pollution transfers is slightly bigger although associated with a windfall effect. The impact of measures which aim at diversifying crops have proved efficient in adding one crop to the rotation, but only on a small portion of farms’ area. The impact of measures which aim at encouraging conversion to organic agriculture appears close to the expected result