Ownership and Investment Behaviour in Transition Countries: A Case Study of Collective and Corporate Farms in the Czech Republic. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 17, February 2012

Cooperative and corporate farms have retained an important role for agricultural production in many transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Despite this importance, these farms' ownership structure, and particularly the ownership's effect on their investment activity, which is vital for efficient restructuring and the sector's future development, are still not well understood. This paper explores the ownership-investment relationship using data on Czech farms from 1997 to 2008. We allow for ownership-specific variability in farm investment behaviour analyzed by utilizing an error-correction accelerator model. Empirical results suggest significant differences in the level of investment activity, responsiveness to market signals, investment lumpiness, as well as investment sensitivity to financial variables among farms with different ownership characteristics. These differences imply that the internal structure of the Czech cooperative and corporate farms will be developing in the direction of a decreasing number of owners and an increasing ownership concentration

Land, Labour and Capital Markets in European Agriculture: Diversity under a Common Policy. CEPS Paperback. October 2013

Well-functioning factor markets are an essential condition for the competitiveness and sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas. At the same time, the functioning of the factor markets themselves is influenced by changes in agriculture and the rural economy. Such changes can be the result of progress in technology, globalisation and European market integration, changing consumer preferences and shifts in policy. Changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) over the last decade have particularly affected the rural factor markets. This book analyses the functioning of factor markets for agriculture in the EU-27 and several candidate countries. Written by leading academics and policy analysts from various European countries, these chapters compare the different markets, their institutional framework, their impact on agricultural development and structural change, and their interaction with the CAP. As the first comparative study to cover rural factor markets in Europe, highlighting their diversity − despite the Common Agricultural Policy and an integrated single market − Land, Labour & Capital Markets in European Agriculture provides a timely and valuable source of information at a time of further CAP reform and the continuing transformation of the EU's rural areas

The assessment of the effects of the investment support scheme in the Czech Republic

The objective of the poster paper is to identify factors of participation in investment support scheme and to assess economic and other effects of the measures 121 “Modernisation of Agricultural Holdings” and 123 “Increasing of value added” of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2007-2013 on the Czech farms. A particular attention is paid to the issues of participation in different measures, differentiated impacts of the supports according to the production conditions and deadweight. In general, the selected measures improved performance of supported farms. Evident differences are among impacts in the farm subsamples – in the sub-sample of farms with a higher density of ruminants the economic impacts are statistically significant while in the other case are not

The Effect of Heterogeneous Buyers on Agricultural Land Prices: The Case of the Czech Land Market

This paper analyses how different types of buyers affect the farmland price. We specify a flexible hedonic land pricing model that allows for non-uniform valuation of land characteristics among buyers. Data on 579 land sale contracts from five districts of the Czech Republic from 2008-2010 are utilised in the study. The results provide strong evidence of buyerspecific valuation of land’s productive and site characteristics as well as systemic differences in land market conditions among groups of buyers, both of which affect the land price. Non-agricultural buyers are observed to significantly overbid agricultural buyers on land location and site characteristics rather than productive qualities. Among agricultural buyers, joint stock companies and cooperatives enjoy major land price discounts, while individual private farms and limited liability companies face land market access constraints that are surmountable only through paying high price premiums. These observations have important implications for future land ownership structure and land use efficiency. Der Aufsatz analysiert, wie unterschiedliche Typen von Käufern den Bodenpreis beeinflussen. Wir spezifizieren ein flexibles hedonisches Bodenpreis-Modell, das Unterschiede in der Bewertung von Bodeneigenschaften durch verschiedene Käufer erfasst. Daten aus 579 Verträgen zu Bodenkäufern aus fünf tschechischen Landkreisen der Jahre 2008 bis 2011 liegen der Analyse zugrunde. Die Ergebnisse liefern eindeutige Belege, dass sowohl käuferspezifische Bewertungen der Bodenproduktivität und Standorteigenschaften als auch systematische Unterschiede in den Marktbedingungen zwischen den Gruppen von Käufern den Preis beeinflussen. Nichtlandwirtschaftliche Käufer bieten signifikant höhere Preise als Käufer mit einem landwirtschaftlichen Hintergrund, dabei achten sie weniger auf die Bodenqualität, sondern schätzen mehr die Lage und andere Standortcharakteristika. Bei den landwirtschaftlichen Käufern werden Aktiengesellschaften und Genossenschaften oft große Preisnachlässe gewährt. Privatlandwirte und GmbHs sehen sich dagegen Beschränkungen im Zugang zum Bodenmarkt ausgesetzt, die nur durch Zahlung von signifikanten Preisprämien überwindbar sind. Diese Ergebnisse haben wichtige Implikationen für die zukünftige Bodeneigentumsstruktur und Effizienz der Bodennutzung

Structural changes in agriculture since EU accession in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary

The collaboration that has led to the publication of this book can be traced back to April 2013, when the Research Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics (VÚEPP) in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, approached the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics (AKI) in Budapest, Hungary, with a view to establishing a programme of bilateral cooperation. The approach was very positively received by AKI, and the idea rapidly developed into a plan for a series of trilateral cooperation activities that also included the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information (IAEI) in Praha, Czech Republic. Representatives of the three institutes met in Budapest at the end of May, 2013 and agreed to work together to enhance mutual research collaboration in the field of agricultural economics, share information and discuss issues related to agricultural economics in the three countries, and establish a coordination group composed by members of the three research institutes. The cooperation was formalised through the signing, in December 2013, of a trilateral Agreement covering the period 2014-2016 covering the following topics: (a) publication of individual or common papers in the institutes’ journals or other journals, and exchange of journals between institutes; (b) exchange of experience via trilateral meetings of specialists; (c) cooperation with other scientific entities and support for affiliation to international networks or construction of a specific network in the institutes’ common field of research interest; (d) applications and participation in common international projects; and (e) participation at international meetings with common research/papers and cooperation in organisation of different international meetings. The three institutes agreed that this would be an excellent way to better disseminate, nationally and internationally, the results of their research work and to open new perspectives to future mutual cooperation. The centrepiece of the programme of cooperation was a trilateral research project entitled “The CAP Impact on the Effectiveness of Use of Agricultural Production Factors and the Economic Efficiency of Agricultural Production and Product Sectors in the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Hungary”. The general objective of this project has been: research on rural areas and the agrifood sector by sectoral analysis, country comparisons, identification of positive and negative influences on the rural and agricultural economy, dissemination of research results, and proposals for future policies in the field. Initially intended to cover four topics (implementation of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), agricultural land ownership and related issues, competitiveness and profitability of crop and animal production, and the efficiency of food industry production), further discussion led to eight topics of joint research being agreed