Back to the list of projects

Paying Firms to Exit: Selection and Effects in a Declining Industry

VIGNSUB
Governments use a wide variety of policy instruments to support industries in decline. One such instrument, subsidizing the exit of firms by paying them to reduce capacity, has received comparatively little attention in the literature. This project uses variation in agricultural policy — specifically, an EU vine-pulling program — to study both selection into, and the causal effects of, exit subsidies. A key object of interest is the additionality of subsidy recipients, meaning whether recipients would have exited from production absent the subsidy. The overall goal is to elucidate the costs and benefits of exit subsidies: what they are, how large they are, and who benefits (or loses).