ABSTRACT
Many analysts perceive resource policy (whether for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, or oil and gas) to be “rural” policy. Often, this judgement is based on the observation that the resource is found in a rural locality. However, it is important to observe the place of residence of the people involved in the sector. If the objective of “rural” policy is to increase the well-being of the rural population, then a resource policy may be an inefficient path to deliver policy to the rural population because many beneficiaries are urban. For example, only about one-half of the benefits of agricultural policy go to predominantly rural regions across OECD countries. For the part of agricultural policy benefits that arrives in predominantly rural regions, it has a direct impact on a minority (about one-tenth) of the rural population. This chapter uses agricultural policy as an example to illustrate the range of the “efficiency” of using resources as the basis for delivering policy to rural populations across OECD member countries.
