Crop Minimum Support Price versus Cost Subsidy: Farmer and Consumer Welfare

Abstract

should the prevailing market price be below the pre-specified MSP. In this paper, we consider a market consisting of infinitesimally small, rational, and strategic farmers (with heterogeneous production costs) who face market and yield uncertainties. Our equilibrium analysis reveals that (i) Although both cost subsidy and MSP induce more production, cost subsidy leads to a higher crop production than MSP; (ii) MSP improves farmer's and consumer's surpluses; however, cost subsidy improves consumer's surplus but it can decrease farmer's surplus, which is unexpected; (iii) Although both programs achieve the same optimal net value (i.e., sum of farmer's and consumer's surpluses minus shortage cost and expenditure), MSP always o ers higher farmer's surplus than cost subsidy and (iv) it is beneficial to invest only in cost subsidy, in both cost subsidy and MSP, and only in MSP, when the budget availability is low, moderate, and high, respectively, so that the net surplus (i.e., sum of farmer's and consumer's surpluses less the shortage cost) is also maximized along with the net value generated being maximized