Suchergebnisse

Abstract. In a time of renewed interested in Alexander Hamilton inliterature and art, recent attention reflects his near indispensable role in establishing the United States' political institutions and economic system. Richard Sylla has written an illustrated biography that complements this renewed interest in Alexander Hamilton.Keywords. Political economy, Economic thought, Politics, Economic system.JEL. B10, L66, Q18.

Abstract. Avner Offer and Gabriel Söderberg have written a history of the Swedish National Bank's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel that considers its establishment, important administrative figures, and ideological change. The book frames the history of 20th century economic thought into liberal Swedish Social Democracy and neo-liberal economics.Keywords. Nobel factor, Nobel prize, Social democracy.JEL. B10, L66, Q18.

The agricultural and food sector is an ideal case for investigating the political economy of public policies. Many of the policy developments in this sector since the 1950s have been sudden and transformational, while others have been gradual but persistent. This article reviews and synthesizes the literature on trends and fuctuations in market distortions and the political-economy explanations that have been advanced. Based on a rich global data set covering a half-century of evidence on commodities, countries, and policy instruments, we identify hypotheses that have been explored in the literature on the extent of market distortions and the conditions under which reform may be feasible.

Abstract. The products and the variety of direct and indirect benefits that humans receive from nature and the various ecosystems (agricultural, forest, grass, mountain, river, marine, etc.) are commonly known as ecosystem services. Agricultural ecosystems of different types and their specific "agro-ecosystem" services are among the most widespread in the world. In recent years increasing attention is given to the system of ("good") governance as a key to achieving public, collective, corporate, and private goals in relation to conservation and improvement of (agro)ecosystem services. Nevertheless, in Bulgaria, like in many other countries, there are few studies on the amount and importance of agro-ecosystem services, and the specific mechanisms, modes, factors, and efficiency of their management. This article tries to fill the gap and presents the results of a large-scale study on the structure and governance of diverse ecosystem services of Bulgarian farms. Firstly, it identifies the type, amount, and importance of various (provisional, economic, recreational, aesthetic, cultural, educational, supporting, water and air purification, biodiversity preservation, climate regulation, etc.) ecosystem services maintained and "produced" by the Bulgarian farms of different juridical type, size, specialization, and location. The study has found out that country's farms provide a great number of essential ecosystem services among which provisioning food and feed, and conservation of elements of the natural environment prevail. Secondly, it identifies and assesses the efficiency and complementarities of specific modes and mechanisms of governance of ecosystem services used by the Bulgarian farms. The study had found out that a great variety of private, market, collective, public and hybrid modes of governance of farm activity related to agroecosystem services are applied. There is significant differentiation of employed managerial forms depending on the type of ecosystem services and the specialization of agricultural holdings. Furthermore, the management of agroecosystem services is associated with a considerable increase in the production and transaction costs of participating farms as well as big socio-economic and environmental effects for agricultural holdings and other parties. The factors that mostly stimulate the activity of Bulgarian agricultural producers for protection of (agro)ecosystems and their services are participation in public support programs, access to farmers' advice, professional training, available information, and innovation, received direct subsidies from EU and national government, personal conviction and satisfaction, positive experience of others, long-term and immediate benefits for the farm, and integration with suppliers, buyers, and processors. The suggested holistic and interdisciplinary framework for analyzing the system of management of agro-ecosystem services is to be further extended and improved, and more widely and periodically applied in the future. The later requires systematic in-depth multidisciplinary research in this new area, as well as the collection of original micro- and macro information on ecosystem survives, and forms, efficiency, and factors of their management. The accuracy of analyzes is to be improved by increasing representativeness through enlarging the number of surveyed farms and related agents, applying statistical methods, special "training" of participants, etc. as well as improving the official system for collecting agricultural, agro-economic, and agri-environmental information in the country.Keywords. Ecosystems, Services, Governance, Efficiency, Agriculture, Farms, Bulgaria.JEL. Q10, O31, O33, Q01, Q16, Q18.

Die Europäische Kommission hat ein Reformpaket für eine anspruchsvolle, zielgerichtete und effiziente Agrarumwelt- und Klimaschutzpolitik geschnürt–unter anderem mit neu eingeführten Eco-Schemes und anderen Maßnahmen zur Förderung der ländlichen Räume. Die beiden dabei genutzten Maßnahmentypen sind in zwei unterschiedlichen Fördersystemen verankert, was erheblichen Verwaltungsaufwand erfordert. Vor allem die landwirtschaftliche Tierhaltung hat aktuell viel Aufmerksamkeit erhalten: Ein hoher Fleischkonsum wird für umweltschädlich gehalten, die Haltungsbedingungen widersprechen häufig dem Tierwohl. Um das Verbraucherverhalten zu ändern, wird die Schaffung eines einheitlichen, leicht verständlichen und verpflichtenden staatlichen Tierwohllabels als zentral angesehen. Letztlich können aber von strengeren Tierschutzmaßnahmen Einkommens- und Wohlfahrtsverluste für Erzeuger und Volkswirtschaft ausgehen.

Acknowledging that the agricultural sector can play an important role as an engine of pro-poor growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the 'political will' of governments to support this sector. The concept of 'political resources' from the political science literature is used to guide the analysis, as it combines the insights from state-centered and society-centered approaches to explain agricultural policies. Drawing on panel data covering 14 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001, we present empirical evidence showing that political factors play an important role in determining government's commitment to supporting agricultural development. We use a measure of democracy that varies both across countries and within countries over time. Estimates are presented for separate samples of democracies and non-democracies, and for a pooled sample of all countries and years irrespective of the democratic status. Our results suggest that the rural poor do exercise electoral leverage in democracies; larger rural population shares are associated with higher spending on agriculture in democracies but not in authoritarian regimes. We also find evidence consistent with the theoretical prior that larger farmers tend to be better organized in interest groups. Specifically, we find that the share of traditional agricultural exports such as coffee and cocoa in the total value of exports, which may be an indicator for the ability of farmers' to organize themselves as interest groups, induces greater spending on agriculture. This result holds true for both democracies and nondemocracies.

Cet article analyse la cohérence entre l'offre d'informations climatiques et les besoins émanant du secteur agricole au Burkina Faso, afin de déterminer le potentiel des services climatiques pour l'adaptation de ce secteur. Les résultats montrent un écart important entre producteurs et utilisateurs d'information au niveau de la communication et de la compréhension des informations, limitant l'utilisation effective des informations produites. Classification JEL : O19, O21, Q18, Q54

Agriculture is a key sector for almost all developing countries. One of the factors influencing agricultural production improvement is government intervention and its important role in improving good governance indicators. This study examines the impact of governance on total agricultural output in developing nations. To address these issues, this paper estimates the panel data regression model. The data of Governance Indicators (GI) is provided by the World Bank. Findings/Originality: The main results suggest a reverse association between overall GI and agricultural growth. In addition, among the six individual GI, control of corruption has the highest impact. It implies that the governance has not addressed the problems in the agricultural sector. On the other hands, the development of agriculture sector is still mainly supported by the economic inputs. It is explained by the evidence that the inputs have positive and significant effect on the value of agricultural production.

Milk is one of the important foods for fulfilling nutrition needs. There is a wide gap between milk production and consumption. In 2002-2007, fresh milk production only grew by 2 percent; but the consumption rose by 14percent. This paper uses a descriptive analysis to explain policy and program needed by the government to develop a milk development plan. In addition, it provides material for improving coordination among government institutions. On farm level, farmers need technical assistant through government programs and Corporate social Responsibility (CSR), facilitation grass fields, and import facilitation of cows. On marketing level, government plays a very important role in creating a captive market for spreading domestic fresh milk market, evaluating the possibility of milk processing industry to be obliged to purchase domestic fresh milk, improving capital access, and improving mutual cooperation among farmers, and among milk processing firms.

Abstract. Despite its importance and continouing debates, there is still no consensus on what is the competitiveness of farms, how to measure the competitiveness of different organizations in agriculture, what is the absolute and comparative competitiveness of different types of farms, which are the critical factors for increasing the competitiveness at the current stage of development, etc. This study tries to fill the existing gap by applying a holistic approach and assessing the competitiveness of Bulgarian farms as a whole and with different specializations. The multi-criteria assessment found that the level of competitiveness of farms in the country is at a good level, with low adaptive potential and economic efficiency to the greatest extent contributing to lower competitiveness. More than a third of all agricultural holdings have a low level of competitiveness. The most competitive are the farms specialised in the beekeeping, followed by field crops, mixed animal husbandry and mixed crops production, and the lowest for farms in grazing livestock. Most significant factors for increasing the competitiveness of Bulgarian farms are market conditions (supply and demand, prices, competition), direct government subsidies, access to knowledge, advice and counseling, participation in government support programs, available information , financial opportunities, and opportunities for benefits in the near future.Proposed approach should be improved and applied more widely and periodically, increasing accuracy and representativeness. The latter requires close cooperation with producer organizations, advisory service and other stakeholders, and improvement of the agricultural information collection system in the country.Keywords. Competitiveness, Agricultural holdings, Specialsiation, Bulgaria.JEL. Q12, Q13, Q15, Q18.

Abstract. The African continent for long has been an enigma for development economists, with several countries witnessing coexistence of rich natural resource base, pockets of underdevelopment and political instability. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a target, it is now imperative that the African countries, particularly the nations facing development challenges,need to contemplate and adopt a long-term action plan. However, the existing literature suggests that addressing the concerns of African countries requires both structural and regulatory reforms. Given the proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in the world today, along with deepening of de-globalizing forces, the practical concern for the African countries is to increasingly participate in Global Value Chains (GVCs) and International Production Networks (IPNs), enhance value-addition within the domestic economy, promote equality in opportunitiesand create employment for the growing young population therein. In a sense Africa is at a juncture, where Asia stood several decades back. The volume edited by Ahlers and Kohli, an attempt to analyze the reform and consequently the growth path in Africa, is therefore a timely contribution to the existing literature.Keywords. Political economy, Economic thought, Politics, Economic system.JEL. B10, L66, Q18.