Assessing the impact of future CAP reforms on the demand of production factors

The CAP reform process has been a central issue for agricultural economics research in recent years, and is gaining further attention in view of the post-2013 perspectives. The objective of this paper is to assess ex-ante the effect of different post-2013 CAP and market scenarios on the demand of productions factors. The paper is based on the use of farm household dynamic programming models maximising the net present value with a time horizon until 2030. A representative model has been implemented for 18 different farming systems in 8 EU countries. Changes in marginal values of selected resource constraints (land, labour and capital) are used to assess the potential effect of different scenarios on farm-household demand of production factors. Results highlight that both policy and market conditions change strongly the demand of productive factors.CAP reform, Investment behaviour, Farm Household model, Factor markets, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q12,

Assessing the impact of future CAP reforms on the demand of production factors

The CAP reform process has been a central issue for agricultural economics research in recent years, and is gaining further attention in view of the post-2013 perspectives. The objective of this paper is to assess ex-ante the effect of different post-2013 CAP and market scenarios on the demand of productions factors. The paper is based on the use of farm household dynamic programming models maximising the net present value with a time horizon until 2030. A representative model has been implemented for 18 different farming systems in 8 EU countries. Changes in marginal values of selected resource constraints (land, labour and capital) are used to assess the potential effect of different scenarios on farm-household demand of production factors. Results highlight that both policy and market conditions change strongly the demand of productive factors.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Unified Concept of Bottleneck

The term `bottleneck` has been extensively used in operations management literature. Management paradigms like the Theory of Constraints focus on the identification and exploitation of bottlenecks. Yet, we show that the term has not been rigorously defined. We provide a classification of bottleneck definitions available in literature and discuss several myths associated with the concept of bottleneck. The apparent diversity of definitions raises the question whether it is possible to have a single bottleneck definition which has as much applicability in high variety job shops as in mass production environments. The key to the formulation of an unified concept of bottleneck lies in relating the concept of bottleneck to the concept of shadow price of resources. We propose an universally applicable bottleneck definition based on the concept of average shadow price. We discuss the procedure for determination of bottleneck values for diverse production environments. The Law of Diminishing Returns is shown to be a sufficient but not necessary condition for the equivalence of the average and the marginal shadow price. The equivalence of these two prices is proved for several environments. Bottleneck identification is the first step in resource acquisition decisions faced by managers. The definition of bottleneck presented in the paper has the potential to not only reduce ambiguity regarding the meaning of the term but also open a new window to the formulation and analysis of a rich set of problems faced by managers.

Diversity and flexibility in sustainable supply chain design

Sustainable supply chain management is a growing field, and one that is currently looking for new design principles. In this dissertation, diversity and flexibility are conceptually explored and then tested empirically in a bioeconomy context