Economists and policy makers are interested in producers’ responses to policies in order to achieve some national or sectoral objectives, e.g., growth, employment, food security. The way producers ...respond to policy depends on their production function. If producers do not have homogenous production function, policy responses will be heterogeneous. We use the underlying functional relationship to derive homogenous groupings. The paper employs finite regression mixture models to specify and estimate farm groups with regard to pre-specified functional relationship. The proposed approach is illustrated with regard to the aggregate production function of Kosovo agriculture, characterised by high prevalence of small farmers. The results point out to two farm clusters. The first one extracts more output from labour and intermediate consumption. The second one makes a better use of land. Perhaps, surprisingly, both clusters appear quite similar in terms of their stock of production inputs. Cluster 1 however appears to be more specialised. We can conclude that in Kosovo agriculture appearances and size are not primary determinants of productivity.
This paper investigates structural change in family farming in ten EU New Member States from Central and Eastern Europe which can be treated as a borderline between transition and developed ...economies. The paper proposes that farms using at least one Annual Work Unit (AWU) family labour are classified as family since it is considered that engaging less than one full-time family member may not show commitment to the family operation. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is employed to analyse the drivers of structural change at a farm level, i.e., the extent to which it is technology or endowment driven. To compare the developments in different countries, the changes are presented in relative terms in order to reveal the relative distance travelled by the structural change in individual New Member States alongside the relative importance of technology and endowments changes. The estimation of a translog production function by country is used to derive the corresponding decompositions. Empirical analysis is based on data from the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for two time points—2007, when the last of the ten CEECs joined the EU—Bulgaria and Romania, and 2015 to investigate structural change during the first decade of EU membership. The results show that the differences in the initial conditions and the adjustments to the CAP have brought about quite a diverse picture concerning the changes in output in the family and non-family farms in the NMS. The a priori expected dynamics of positive output growth in family farms and negative in the non-family has only materialised in Latvia, Romania and Slovakia. The decomposition of output changes suggests a positive effect of technical change in family farms only in the early years of EU accession. Concerning endowments, their effect on structural change is mostly positive with the only exception of Slovenia. This suggests that the family farming sector grows by accumulating productive resources. However, this growth has not always materialised in increase of family farms output.
Land price studies typically employ hedonic analysis to identify the impact of land characteristics on price. Owing to the spatial fixity of land, however, the question of possible spatial dependence ...in agricultural land prices arises. The presence of spatial dependence in agricultural land prices can have serious consequences for the hedonic model analysis. Ignoring spatial autocorrelation can lead to biased estimates in land price hedonic models. We propose using a flexible quantile regression-based estimation of the spatial lag hedonic model allowing for varying effects of the characteristics and, more importantly, varying degrees of spatial autocorrelation. In applying this approach to a sample of agricultural land sales in Northern Ireland we find that the market effectively consists of two relatively separate segments. The larger of these two segments conforms to the conventional hedonic model with no spatial lag dependence, while the smaller, much thinner market segment exhibits considerable spatial lag dependence.
Un modèle hédonique à régression quantile spatiale des prix des terrains agricoles
Résumé Les études sur le prix des terrains font généralement usage d'une analyse hédonique pour identifier l'impact des caractéristiques des terrains sur le prix. Toutefois, du fait de la fixité spatiale des terrains, la question d'une éventuelle dépendance spatiale sur la valeur des terrains agricoles se pose. L'existence d'une dépendance spatiale dans le prix des terrains agricoles peut avoir des conséquences importantes sur l'analyse du modèle hédonique. En ignorant cette corrélation sérielle, on s'expose au risque d'évaluations biaisées des modèles hédoniques du prix des terrains. Nous proposons l'emploi d'une estimation à base de régression flexible du modèle hédonique à décalage spatial, tenant compte de différents effets des caractéristiques, et surtout de différents degrés de corrélations sérielles spatiales. En appliquant ce principe à un échantillon de ventes de terrains agricoles en Irlande du Nord, nous découvrons que le marché se compose de deux segments relativement distincts. Le plus important de ces deux segments est conforme au modèle hédonique traditionnel, sans dépendance du décalage spatial, tandis que le deuxième segment du marché, plus petit et beaucoup plus étroit, présente une dépendance considérable du décalage spatial.
Un modelo hedónico de regresión cuantil espacial de los precios del terreno agrícola
Resumen Típicamente, los estudios del precio de la tierra emplean un análisis hedónico para identificar el impacto de las características de la tierra sobre el precio. No obstante, debido a la fijeza espacial de la tierra, surge la cuestión de una posible dependencia espacial en los precios del terreno agrícola. La presencia de dependencia espacial en los precios del terreno agrícola puede tener consecuencias graves para el modelo de análisis hedónico. Ignorar la autocorrelación espacial puede conducir a estimados parciales en los modelos hedónicos del precio de la tierra. Proponemos el uso de una valoración basada en una regresión cuantil flexible del modelo hedónico del lapso espacial que tenga en cuenta los diversos efectos de las características y, particularmente, los diversos grados de autocorrelación espacial. Al aplicar este planteamiento a una muestra de ventas de terreno agrícola en Irlanda del Norte, descubrimos que el mercado consiste efectivamente de dos segmento relativamente separados. El más grande de estos dos segmentos se ajusta al modelo hedónico convencional sin dependencia del lapso espacial, mientras que el segmento más pequeño, y mucho más fino, muestra una dependencia considerable del lapso espacial.
The spatial lag specification is often used in spatial econometrics. The choice of an appropriate spatial weighting matrix is an important outstanding methodological problem in the quantitative ...spatial dependence literature. This paper proposes applying a component-wise model-boosting algorithm to deal with the issue of the choice of a spatial weighting matrix amongst a predetermined set of alternatives. The resulting procedure is computationally simple and easy to implement. I present an empirical application of the proposed methodology. Some possible extensions to a more general setting are discussed.
The spatial quantile regression model is a useful and flexible model for analysis of empirical problems with spatial dimension. This paper introduces an alternative estimator for this model. The ...properties of the proposed estimator are discussed in a comparative perspective with regard to the other available estimators. Simulation evidence on the small sample properties of the proposed estimator is provided. The proposed estimator is feasible and preferable when the model contains multiple spatial weighting matrices. Furthermore, a version of the proposed estimator based on the exponentially tilted empirical likelihood could be beneficial if model misspecification is suspect.
We examine the comparative efficiency of family relative to corporate farms, using FADN data for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Spain. We estimate a non‐parametric non‐separable farm ...production function, and derive efficiency scores for both family and corporate farms. We decompose efficiency into two distinct sources – organisational differences and management capabilities. We find evidence for organisational efficiency gains from family farming, relative to corporate farming, and these appear to increase with family involvement. However, with regard to management capabilities, family farms do not compare so favourably. Furthermore, family involvement does not seem to have any systematic effect on the efficiency derived from management capabilities. Our findings suggest that further investigation of the way family farms employ and build management capabilities is needed to substantiate any ‘superiority’ claims.
The influence of buyer and personal relationship characteristics on agricultural land prices has received little attention in the literature. Recently, Perry and Robison (2001) used a restricted ...nonlinear specification to model the influence of personal relationships on the implicit prices of land characteristics. In this paper a more flexible alternative model is proposed. An approach to general model specification and model selection is presented. The results indicate that buyer characteristics and personal relationships exert nonuniform effects on the implicit prices of land characteristics. Our results support the hypothesis that social capital affects the terms of trade in the land market. (JEL C14)
There is very little empirical evidence supporting the claims that family farming is a ‘superior’ form of organisation for agricultural production. This paper investigates the comparative output ...effects of family labour in several EU Member States. No positive output effects can be discerned when farms are characterised by a low level of technical efficiency. In the case of efficient farms, the incremental effects of family labour are characterised by a number of thresholds. The paper only finds limited support for the claimed positive output effects of family farming and these only materialise after a considerable family involvement is committed.
Theoretical arguments suggest that capital structure will adjust to the dynamics of the corporate governance environment. In line with this prediction, we examine the impact of board characteristics ...on capital structure dynamics and the speed of adjustment. Using 2690 firm‐year observations for 2009–2018, we find that firms in a stakeholder‐oriented corporate governance environment adjust their leverage faster than those in a shareholder‐oriented environment. We also find that corporate board characteristics influence firms' capital structure and speed of adjustment towards target leverage. Our findings are robust to alternative measures of leverage and endogeneity. The overall evidence supports the relevance of the corporate board's composition in both shareholder‐oriented and stakeholder‐oriented corporate governanc (CG) environments. We conclude that board composition mitigates agency conflict.
We investigate the impact of direct payments on agricultural commercialisation in Kosovo. Kosovo is one of the poorest countries in Europe but, with European assistance, provides substantial funds to ...support agriculture, made up of many small and often semi‐subsistence farms. Thus, the effect of this support is a central policy issue. Identifying the effect of direct payments on market participation faces endogeneity issues arising from the possible simultaneous determination of participation in support programmes and market participation. In order to achieve proper identification of the endogenous direct payments, we use a strategy of targeted identification search that employs several different methodological approaches. We find that direct payments for fruit and vegetables, and those for cereals and oilseeds have a positive effect on market participation. However, we cannot identify any definite effect of livestock payments.
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