Dilemmas concerning dependencies between direct payments and farm investment

The main aim of this paper was discuss theoretical and methodological difficulties referring to measurement of dependencies between direct payments (including decoupled payments) and farm investment. The article presents the critical overview of research approaches concerning the aforesaid relationship. Moreover, this paper discusses dependencies, based on the empirical data (from European FADN): between investment rate (gross investment/depreciation) and decoupled payments with the assessment by means of correlation analysis. Implementation of the integrated research approach should be recommended. Althought behavioural factors may be significant in analysis how direct payments affect, channels concerning agricultural policy should not be ignored. In the case of aggregated data from New Member States (NMS), dependencies were unequivocal. This may indicate the need to carry out detailed studies on uncertainty and farmers’ expectations for the type and amount of future payments.