Production quota
The production quota (also production quota ) is in the economy a quota regulation within the framework of state market regulation , which limits the production of goods in terms of quantity .
General
Alongside the import quota, the production quota is the most important state quota regulation in the production economy . It becomes necessary when there is market failure due to missing or no longer functioning market or price mechanisms . In the event of overproduction, the production quota leads to state intervention through laws or official orders , whereby companies in a certain branch of the economy are not allowed to exceed a certain production volume per unit of time, because otherwise there is a risk of sanctions . The overproduction, in turn, can be found in markets in which supply and demand are structurally unevenly distributed, for example because there are minimum prices . These minimum prices are still profitable for most companies, so that they produce so much until they reach their capacity limit , regardless of demand .
history
In 1387, a contract between Amberg and Sulzbach-Rosenberg was signed to limit the production of iron ore , which reflected the problems in the late medieval mining industry . In Marburg there had been a lasting recession since around 1490 , which resulted in a declining demand for Marburg cloths, so that the overproduction in the most important medieval trade in the city between 1517 and 1523 led to the production of wool weavers being restricted . Before 1520, production quotas and minimum prices were set throughout German iron ore mining.
Say's theorem , set up by Jean-Baptiste Say in 1803 , assumed that the aggregate supply creates an equally high aggregate demand, so that overproduction cannot occur. Adam Smith and David Ricardo joined a general overproduction ( English general glut ) of true, but Ricardo admitted 1817 that individual goods would every now and again produced too little or too much. According to the German Spirits Tax Act of June 1887, a certain production quota was taxed at a low tax rate, which favored the small and medium-sized distilleries , almost all of which were subject to the moderate tax rate. For Karl Marx , the overproduction of capital in 1894 meant “never anything else than the overproduction of means of production - labor and foodstuffs - which can function as capital, ie for the exploitation of labor to a given degree of exploitation [degree of exploitation, i. Author] can be applied ... ". In 1908 there were over 500 cartels in the German Reich that set prices and production quotas. With the Ignition Goods Monopoly Act that came into force in January 1930, the Deutsche Zündwaren-Monopolgesellschaft issued production and purchase quotas to the actual manufacturers at minimum prices. Following the repeal of the Ignition Monopoly Act in January 1983, prices for ignition goods fell by a third.
Internationally, agricultural production in particular tends to overproduce . To reduce this, production quotas have been introduced for some agricultural products. In September 1959, for example, the surplus of sugar on the world market increased to 12.6 million tons, which caused Cuba, with its further 3.52 million tons of sugar, to experience serious export difficulties. In March 1961 - before the Cuban Missile Crisis began - the United States reduced Cuba's sugar quota to zero, which amounted to a ban on imports of Cuban sugar. In today's EU there was a sugar quota from July 1968 to September 2017 due to the sugar market regime. So that the sugar quota was not undermined, the production of any substitute goods had to be quoted. The EU's sugar quota system initially extended to isoglucose and later to inulin . This reduced the incentives to develop new products and production processes through innovation in order to undermine the sugar quota.
The milk quota as a regulation of the amount of milk had to be introduced after there had been an EEC- wide supply surplus before July 1978 . A benchmark system of the market regulation law prescribed a quota for milk production since 1979 . The EEC introduced the first milk quota in April 1984 and continued it until April 2015. A state intervention price was introduced for by- products such as butter ( Butterberg ) , so that state intervention agencies had to take over storage with corresponding storage costs . The intervention price is a minimum price for the producer, with which he can calculate. In this context, EU law differentiates between the production quota, which affects the individual company, and the limitation of the total production of an EU member state by the guarantee threshold .
During the various steel crises (1964–1974, 1975–1985, 1986–1996) there were numerous production quotas. In October 1980, for example , the Council of Ministers of the ECSC proclaimed the state of a "manifest crisis" in the steel industry , which authorized the EC to introduce binding production quotas in the member states that were in effect until October 1983 in order to achieve price stability.
The concept of factory farming probably goes back to Bernhard Grzimek when he mentioned it in a newspaper article in September 1973: "Of course, factory farming fully complies with animal cruelty even under the new animal protection law". The factory farming of livestock in industrial agriculture has so far not known any production limits corresponding to species-appropriate keeping . The permitted stocking density , i.e. the total live weight of animals per square meter ( Section 2 No. 13 TierSchNutztV ) is regulative. According to § 10 TierSchNutztV, calves need a space of at least 1.5 m² when kept in groups. With short fattening and a final fattening weight of 1.6 kg, around 24 chickens have to share 1 m² of space with the highest permitted stocking density , with long fattening even 26 ( Section 19 (2) TierSchNutztV). On the other hand, species-appropriate keeping is already achieved with 9 chickens. If the stocking density is reduced by increasing the number of m², the production quota is reduced.
Shooting plans limit space and time the game density to § 21 para. 1 BJagdG in the hunt for wild . In this way, on the one hand, the justified claims of the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry for protection against damage from game are preserved and, on the other hand, the interests of nature conservation and landscape management are taken into account. The NAFO and other organizations make in the fishery for limiting the catch quotas which the fish are quantitatively restrict certain types of fish per state. The subsidies , together with the fishing quotas, have encouraged the development of chronic overcapacity .
The production quotas also include the cultivation area restrictions due to set-aside in agriculture in the USA and other countries. Agricultural land restriction has been repeatedly promoted by the US government to reduce excess production that has been created in many agricultural products. In September 1972, then Minister of Agriculture Earl Butz ordered another 5 million acres of wheat land to be taken out of production. The total fallow acreage in the US was 62 million acres ; that was the size of all of Britain's arable land.
economic aspects
Because the production quotas are always below the capacity limits, the companies can no longer exhaust their capacity limits; so-called idle capacities arise , which cause loss-making idle costs. In addition, overproduction and a lack of sales opportunities result in increased storage risks with additional storage costs. Production quotas therefore force companies to cut back on their production so that - in the event of declining sales revenues - staff may have to be laid off in order to cut costs . Compliance with production quotas leads to a shortage of supply, which can restore the market equilibrium through price increases. Production quotas are forcing companies in order to avoid the costs of idle capacity in the medium term to reduce their company size or to diversify , such as launch of co-products or innovations .
In the quota or quantity cartel, the cartel members are given the exact production quantities. A typical example is the OPEC , the production rate of crude oil , for example, at times of the oil crisis , fell by a higher oil price to achieve. The reason was not a surplus of oil production, but mainly political and economic events.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmut Hoffacker, Production Methods in the Middle Ages , Volume 5, 1985, p. 289
- ↑ Eberhard Dähne, Marburg, an illustrated city history , 1985, p. 15
- ^ Rolf Sprandel , Das Eisengewerbe im Mittelalter , 1968, p. 140
- ^ David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation , Volume I, 1817, p. 290
- ↑ Max Weber , Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft , 1922, p. 102
- ^ Karl Marx, Das Kapital , Volume III, 1894, p. 266
- ↑ John P. Birkelund, Gustav Stresemann: Patriot and Statesman , 2003, p. 33
- ^ University of Rostock , Scientific Journal of the University of Rostock: Society and Linguistic Series , Volume 11, 1962, p. 624
- ↑ Christian Grimm, Agricultural Law , 2004, Rn. 380
- ↑ Urs Egger, Agricultural Strategies in Various Economic Systems , 1989, p. 171 f.
- ↑ Verlag Dr. Th. Gabler GmbH, Gabler Volkswirtschafts-Lexikon , Volume 1, 1990, p. 180
- ↑ Bernhard Grzimek, Born to Slaughter , in: DIE ZEIT of September 21, 1973
- ↑ Sonja Koeppel, The Problem of Sustainability in European Fisheries Policy , 2005, p. 47
- ^ Neuer Konkret Verlag, Konkret , 1979, p. XIII
