Joining the Ec: the Relevance of Macrolinkages in Austrian Agriculture

A proper analysis of the consequences of an Austrian participation in the European Common Market for the domestic farming sector requires a simultaneous consideration of intraand intersectoral effects. Simulation experiments with a model link between a macroeconometric model and an econometrically estimated agricultural sector model indicate that the migration process out of the agricultural sector will substantially increase. However, neglecting individual burdens from changing ones occupation, there seems to be no unemployment problems for leaving farmers in the long run as the absorption capacity of the non-agricultural sector is shown to be sufficient. ) Professor Dr. M.F. Hofreither, Department of Economics, Politics, and Law, University of Agricultural Sciences; Mag. Ch.R. Weiss, Department of Economics , University of Linz, A4040 Linz/Auhof. The authors gratefully acknowledges helpful comments by the participants of the Sixth Congress of the E.A.A.E. held in The Hague from 3 to 7 September 1990.