Farm performance and support in Central and Western Europe: A comparison of Hungary and France

The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency and in productivity change, and the technology gaps, between French and Hungarian farms in the dairy and cereal, oilseeds and proteinseeds (COP) sectors during the period 2001-2004. The analyses are performed with national FADN data and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach under each country’s respective frontier and under a metafrontier. Results revealed that in both the dairy and the COP sectors, Hungarian farms’ technology was the more productive, despite a technological deterioration. This suggests technological advantages for large-scale (Hungarian) over small-scale (French) farming in these two sectors. These findings may also be explained by the higher policy support in France. Subsidies received by farms have indeed a stronger negative impact on technical efficiency for French farms than for Hungarian farms, and a negative impact on the ability to lead the technology only for French farms.technology gap, technical efficiency, Malmquist indices, subsidies, farms

Technical Efficiency and Productivity Change of Dairy Farms: A comparison of France and Hungary

The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency, productivity and technology between French and Hungarian dairy farms, in 2001 and 2002, using Data Envelopment Analysis with separate and a common frontier. Results indicate that Hungarian farmers are more clustered to their own frontier than French farms are, but French farms are, on the other hand, more scale efficient. Both samples have increased their productivity between both years, with a higher technological change for Hungary. Comparing the technology of both countries reveals that Hungarian farms have a superior technology. Under a common hypothetical technology, Hungarian farms would be the leaders but French farms would nevertheless succeed in increasing their productivity as much as they do under their own frontier.Productivity Analysis,

The Choice of Farm Organization. A Hungarian Case

The literature on the agricultural transformation in Central an Eastern European countries usually neglect the investigation of organizational forms in agriculture. This paper is the first to analyze the choice of organization forms in transition agriculture employing transaction cost theory. The analysis is based on Hungarian FADN data in 2003. In general, our results do not support the theoretical predictions on the choice of farm organization, but confirm the differences in capital level and farm area observed in different farm organizations. The divergence between theory and empirics shed light on the importance of path dependency in explaining of farm organizations.Farm Management,

Farm performance and support in Central and Western Europe: a comparison of Hungary and France

The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency and in productivity change, and the technology gaps, between French and Hungarian farms in the dairy and cereal, oilseeds and proteinseeds (COP) sectors during the period 2001-2004. The analyses are performed with national FADN data and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach under each country’s respective frontier and under a metafrontier. Results revealed that in both the dairy and the COP sectors, Hungarian farms’ technology was the more productive, despite a technological deterioration. This suggests technological advantages for large-scale (Hungarian) over small-scale (French) farming in these two sectors. These findings may also be explained by the higher policy support in France. Subsidies received by farms have indeed a stronger negative impact on technical efficiency for French farms than for Hungarian farms, and a negative impact on the ability to lead the technology only for French farms.technology gap, technical efficiency, Malmquist indices, subsidies, farms, Production Economics, P51, D24, Q12,

Impact of public subsidies on farms’ technical efficiency in New Member States before and after EU accession

This paper presents some results of a two-year (2006-2007) research project supported by the French Ministry of Research’s funding program ECONET. One of the project’s objectives was to investigate the determinants of farm technical efficiency in New Member States before and after accession to the European Union, and in particular the role of public subsidies on this performance variable. Four countries were considered: Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, who acceded to the EU in 2004, and Romania, whose accession was in 2007. The study found that subsidies had a negative impact on farm technical efficiency in Hungary over the period 2001-2005, in the Czech dairy corporate sector over the period 2000-2004, in Slovenia over the period 1994-2003, and in the Romanian crop sector in 2005.technical efficiency, farms, subsidies, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Romania, Farm Management,

The Effect of Exchange Rate Volatility upon Foreign Trade of Hungarian Agricultural Products

This paper takes a new empirical look at the long-standing question of the effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade flows of transition economies in Central Europe by studying the case of Hungarian agricultural exports to their export destination countries between 1999 and 2008. Based on a gravity model that controls for other factors likely to determine bilateral trade, the results show that nominal exchange rate volatility has had a significant positive effect on agricultural trade over this period. This positive effect of exchange rate volatility on agricultural exports suggests that agri-food entrepreneurs are not interested in speeding up the process of joining Hungary to the euro zone

Efficiency and total factor productivity in post-EU accession Hungarian sugar beet production

This paper analyses efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) in Hungarian sugar beet production applying non-parametric frontier techniques. For 2004 and 2005 efficiency and TFP are calculated by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and by a Malmquist index respectively. Between 2004 and 2005 the average technical efficiency was very stable, around 0.80 for CRS efficiency and 0.87 for VRS efficiency, suggesting that in both years farms were similarly clustered towards the frontier. The analysis of returns to scale reveals that during both years half (48%) of the sugar beet growers were operating under increasing returns to scale. In the two analysed years changes occurred between decreasing returns to scale and scale efficient farms, when the first increased from 32% to 37%, while the second decreased from 20% to 15%. In 2004 the highest technical efficiency can be observed in Szerencs district followed by Kaba district and then Szolnok district, while the efficiency rating changed in 2005 when the most efficient district was Kaposvár, followed by Szerencs and Petőháza. Between years TFP increased by 9%. The main reason for the observed TFP increase was technical progress of 8%, while technical efficiency played a limited role in improving the performance of sugar beet production. At the same time there was a clear convergence which can be identified and thus improving efficiency scores among individual holdings. Although in the analysed period TFP increased, our empirical results have revealed pure technical inefficiency. In the first three most efficient sugar beet production districts the technical efficiency decreased while in the two least efficient districts technical efficiency increased and they became more homogenous to the frontier compared to the former three districts in 2005

The Effect of Exchange Rate Volatility upon Foreign Trade of Hungarian Agricultural Products

This paper takes a new empirical look at the long-standing question of the effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade flows of transition economies in Central Europe by studying the case of Hungarian agricultural exports to their export destination countries between 1999 and 2008. Based on a gravity model that controls for other factors likely to determine bilateral trade, the results show that nominal exchange rate volatility has had a significant positive effect on agricultural trade over this period. This positive effect of exchange rate volatility on agricultural exports suggests that agri-food entrepreneurs are not interested in speeding up the process of joining Hungary to the euro zone.international trade, gravity model, exchange rate volatility, International Relations/Trade, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Risk and Uncertainty,

Efficiency and total factor productivity in post-EU accession Hungarian sugar beet production

This paper analyses efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) in Hungarian sugar beet production applying non-parametric frontier techniques. For 2004 and 2005 efficiency and TFP are calculated by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and by a Malmquist index respectively. Between 2004 and 2005 the average technical efficiency was very stable, around 0.80 for CRS efficiency and 0.87 for VRS efficiency, suggesting that in both years farms were similarly clustered towards the frontier. The analysis of returns to scale reveals that during both years half (48%) of the sugar beet growers were operating under increasing returns to scale. In the two analysed years changes occurred between decreasing returns to scale and scale efficient farms, when the first increased from 32% to 37%, while the second decreased from 20% to 15%. In 2004 the highest technical efficiency can be observed in Szerencs district followed by Kaba district and then Szolnok district, while the efficiency rating changed in 2005 when the most efficient district was Kaposvár, followed by Szerencs and Petőháza. Between years TFP increased by 9%. The main reason for the observed TFP increase was technical progress of 8%, while technical efficiency played a limited role in improving the performance of sugar beet production. At the same time there was a clear convergence which can be identified and thus improving efficiency scores among individual holdings. Although in the analysed period TFP increased, our empirical results have revealed pure technical inefficiency. In the first three most efficient sugar beet production districts the technical efficiency decreased while in the two least efficient districts technical efficiency increased and they became more homogenous to the frontier compared to the former three districts in 2005.Efficiency, TFP, Data Envelopment Analysis, Sugar beet production, FADN., Crop Production/Industries, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

On Trade Impact of Exchange Rate Volatility and Institutional Quality: The Case of Central European Countries

This paper explores the effect of exchange rate volatility and of the institutional quality on international trade flows of transition economies in Central European Countries by applying a gravity model of balance panel between 1999 and 2008. The results show that nominal exchange rate volatility has had a significant negative effect on trade by applying Psuedo-Maximum-Likelihood (PML) estimator method over this period. The institutional quality need to be improved in case of size of government and the quality of regulation. The negative effect of exchange rate volatility on agricultural exports suggests that joining Central European Countries to the euro zone can reduce the negative effects of exchange rate volatility on trade