Apart from these static and dynamic general theories, there exists a considerable number of case studies which apply public choice analysis to specific policy areas and key events of European integration. Most of them concern the common agricultural policy, external trade protection, the Internal Market Programme, monetary cooperation, fiscal policy, taxation and transfers. Owing to shortage of space, no more than a brief overview can be provided.
The public choice aspects of the common agricultural policy have recently been surveyed by Josling and Moyer (1991). Koester (1978) and Schmitt (1984) emphasized the fact that the Council of Ministers of Agriculture is not financially accountable. Moreover, the Council of Ministers is more access- ible for the agricultural lobby than a (large) parliament (Schmitt, 1984; Senior Nello, 1984). Haase (1983), Beusmann and Hagedorn (1984) and Senior Nello (1984) applied Olson’s (1965) theory of interest groups to explain why the farm lobby is well organized, why it is dominated by large farmers and why it dominates over consumer and taxpayer interests. Hirschman (1981b, p. 272) suggested that the trade-diverting characteristics of the common agricultural policy played a crucial role in gaining support for it in some member countries. Von Witzke (1986) showed that the level of EC agricultural price support depends on agricultural income and budgetary expenditures.
In the literature on the political economy of protection, there are numerous references to the common commercial policy of the EC. Weiss (1987) tests the hypothesis that the change of an industry’s effective protection depends on its factor intensities, its regional and firm concentration and its initial level of protection. The most important public choice study of EC commer- cial policy (‘anti-dumping’, ‘voluntary export restraints’ and the authoriza- tion of national protection) is provided by Schuknecht (1992a); see also Schuknecht (1991). He compares the various instruments with respect to the degree of political discretion, transparency, precision and the required degree