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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of direct government payments on agricultural production and exports in the USA.

Alternative regression models are estimated using the time‐series data of 1960 to 2010 from ERS/USDA to address the research questions.

Regression results suggest that current direct government payments had negative influences on US agricultural production and exports, and the lagged influences were positive, but as a whole the impacts of direct government payments were very limited.

Findings from this study provide useful information to agricultural policymakers in the USA, as well as other nations such as China. China may learn from the US experience in developing agricultural subsidies that are effective and allowed under WTO.

While many agricultural trade disputes under WTO are related to the question of whether domestic government supports have boosted agricultural production and exports or reduced imports, this paper addresses the question based on empirical analysis.

Direct payments in mental health services have come a long way in the last few years, but are personal budgets and the increasing prominence of social care in policy terms having detrimental effects on their success? While most people agree that direct payments are a good idea, in reality less than five per cent of those eligible to use community care services actually use them. Realising the government's intention of ‘prevention, early intervention, enablement, and high quality personally tailored services’ still has a way to go.

The White Paper (DoH, 2006) stated that the Government wanted more people to enjoy the benefits of direct payments. This article looks at the Government's proposals for extending direct payments to those who lack capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how decoupled direct payments, paid to farm operators based on historical yields and base acreage, may lead to production distortions by altering a farmer's access to credit or enabling the farmer to receive more favorable credit terms. The authors estimate the impact of decoupled direct payments under the 2002 Farm Bill on the credit terms of farm operators, specifically the interest rate on short‐term operating loans. If farm operators are able to obtain more favorable credit terms and reduce their operating cost, then this offers an additional mechanism through which decoupled payments may distort current production.

The authors estimate the impact of decoupled direct payments on the interest rate on short‐term operating loans. In the analysis, the authors control for farm financial characteristics, farm operator characteristics, and other factors. Data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey for the years 2005‐2007, are used in the weighted regression analysis. Jackknifed standard errors are also computed.

As the proportion of base acres to total operated acres increases it is found that interest rates decline by a small but statistically significant amount. This implies that direct payments lead to lower operating costs through better credit terms.

Lower operating costs may in turn allow some farmers to expand production or produce on land that would otherwise be unprofitable to operate and hence left idle. Ultimately, this distorts current production. However, the small magnitude of the authors' results suggests that the reduction in interest rates, though positive, may have limited distortionary impacts.

The paper provides evidence that decoupled payments alter a farm operator's credit terms and hence could lead to current production distortions. The paper contributes to the growing body of research investigating the mechanisms by which decoupled payments have the potential to distort current production.

This article examines the existing legal framework for safeguarding in the context of the Putting People First (Ministers et al, 2007) agenda, in order to consider the risks of abuse in a new era of arms' length care management, and the employment of non‐regulated workers. It examines how these risks may be adequately and proactively managed through attention to the requirements of the current legal framework, as long as it is understood that the current legal framework should be pervaded, by now, by the principles and fall‐back remedies offered by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (HM Government, 2005a).

This paper seeks to focus on legal issues concerning direct payments for social care for adults. Its aim is to consider whether the aspirations for choice, control and innovation, central to successive governments' purpose in introducing direct payments and which have caused it to gain public support, risk being undermined by budget cuts within social service departments and whether the legal framework provides sufficient guarantees to those in need.

The paper summarises the legal basis for direct payments; considers issues of brokerage, choice, resource allocation and commissioning; and looks at relevant legal challenges made up to May 2011.

The paper finds that severe budgetary restraint is likely to undermine the original vision for personalisation and direct payments; and that the legal framework of social service delivery creates risks for councils and service users.

In order to achieve their legal entitlement, users of self‐directed support should always seek top‐up discretionary funds in addition to their initial resource allocation schemes budgetary indication, unless satisfied that the initial indication meets their needs. User groups should be careful to ensure that in funding care services, councils conduct a proper balancing exercise and do not over focus on their own budgetary agenda which may be unlawful.

The paper should provide a useful reference point for users of self‐directed support and their advisers.

Local authorities have a duty to listen to service users but, with notable exceptions, have not done so in relation to the provision of direct payments to people with learning disabilities. The paper proposes some measures that would help raise the level of such provision, and discusses the use of Independent Living Trusts.

The purpose of this paper is to use the DuPont expansion to examine those factors underlying differences in (rates of) return on different crop portfolios over space (ten regions) and time (1960‐2004). The paper also estimates the impact of government payments on farmland values through its impact on farm profitability.

Businesses use the DuPont model to analyze the profitability of a business. This model includes three components: net profit margin, asset turnover, and financial leverage (or assets to equity). It is based on the relationships among these three components and is expressed as a product of ratios. For the purposes of the current study, accrued capital gains from (total) returns are excluded to focus on cash returns “cash flow”. Returns from current income are a “cash flow” available in the short run to pay financial obligations. Furthermore, returns from capital gains are not liquid; they are gains in wealth fully captured as capital gains/losses only in the longer term. Following the DuPont approach, the effect of government payments on farm asset values is equal to the sum of the effect of government payments on profit margins plus the effect of government payments on the asset turnover ratio.

The analysis focuses on agricultural profitability in the ten Economic Research Service (ERS) regions. By comparing the components of the DuPont expansion, profitability differences over time are analyzed. The results indicate that one cause of low profitability in the Corn Belt and Mountain regions is a perpetually low profit margin while the evidence for other regions supports lower asset efficiency. Results show that government payments impact the profit margin and affect value of farm assets in particular farmland values but not asset turnover ratio.

The use of DuPont expansion factor in agriculture is original and really helps us to understand the factors driving profitability in agriculture. Another innovation (originality) in this paper is the theoretical model that connects the DuPont expansion factor, government payments and its impact on farmland values.

In the discussion groups subjects will be taken up which are not dealt with in the lectures. The subjects to be taken up in the discussion groups of each week and the assignments relating thereto will be announced well in advance of the meetings.