  We show that, within a meson-exchange dynamical model describing most of the
existing pion electromagnetic production data up to the second resonance
region, one is also able to obtain a good agreement with the pi0 photo- and
electroproduction data near threshold. The potentials used in the model are
derived from an effective chiral Lagrangian. The only sizable discrepancy
between our results and the data is in the P-wave amplitude P3 = 2M1+ + M1-,
where our prediction underestimate the data by about 20%. In the case of pi0
production, the effects of final state interaction in the threshold region are
nearly saturated by single charge exchange rescattering. This indicates that in
ChPT it might be sufficient to carry out the calculation just up to one-loop
diagrams for threshold neutral pion production.
