Suchergebnisse

There are important differences among former communist countries in performance of their agricultural sectors that are commonly attributed to variation in inherent institutions and reform policy choices. In this paper the link between institutions, reforms and (labour) productivity growth in agriculture is analysed within an augmented neo-classical growth model framework derived from a production function. For the empirical analysis panel data over the transition period (1990-2001) were used that cover 15 former communist countries, applying a GMM-IV estimator. Estimation results strongly support the view that the shift to individual land use, measuring farm restructuring, as well as the overall economic reforms, supported by democratic institutions, have positively contributed to the (labour) productivity growth in former communist countries' agriculture.

The purpose of this paper is to put into an appropriate theoretical frame the rural development issues in enlarging Europe and to analyse the rural development perspectives in the European Union (EU) accession countries. Based on comparisons of developments in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and features of the rural areas in incumbent EU member states with the status of the rural sectors in accession countries, implications for the future of CAP are discussed. It is argued that despite coming from different development doctrines, the dominant rural sector-agriculture-in both eastern and western Europe is similarly characterized by dual structure. Thus, emphasis on rural development structural policies currently being promoted by the reforming CAP can be fruitful in both new and incumbent member states.

This article examines determinants of the agrarian structure in transition economies with an emphasis on the role of rural households' human capital. Land reform and enterprise restructuring have resulted in a broad range of farm types, such as cooperatives, partnerships, individual farms and combinations of these. In the theoretical model the fact that household resources are allocated to different organization modes is attributed to the utility maximization strategy of heterogeneous agents deriving income from uncertain sources in the face of incomplete factor markets. The empirical results from a multinomial logit model estimated with data from a two-year nationwide survey of Romanian rural households support the hypothesis that the current agrarian structure is importantly affected by the human capital characteristics of the households and the economic risks they face.

AbstractIn this paper a model based on the Euler equation of optimal capital accumulation in the presence of convex adjustment costs is developed and estimated. The theoretical model explicitly allows for differential financial status across firms. The empirical analysis uses Romanian manufacturing firm panel data to estimate dynamic investment models with the generalized method of moments (GMM‐IV) technique and tests the derived hypotheses. The results indicate that the model based on the perfect market assumptions is rejected. The version of the model that allows for differential financial status of firms by using a theoretically derived sample selection rule is not rejected by the data. Controlling for soft budget constraints, common for transition economies, further improves the performance of the model.

Accession of Bulgaria to the European Union is expected to result in increases in the prices of all types of real estate, these changes are expected to differ across the segments of the national real estate market. Real estate prices have been inXuenced primarily by local demand, government policies and the perception that EU accession is promoting investment. It is likely that prices of Xats will further differentiate, themarket for ofWce space will stabilize, demand from retail sector will strengthen the market for urban development sites, provision of infrastructure will importantly inXuence prices in holiday resorts and industrial estates, and agricultural land prices will initially upsurge.

We compute aggregate productivity of manufacturing industries by urban, rural less sparse and rural sparse locations in the UK from firm-specific total factor productivities, which are estimated by a semi-parametric algorithm within 4-digit manufacturing industries using FAME data over the period 1994-2001. We analyse the productivity differentials across location categories by decomposing them into industry productivity effect and industry composition effect. Our analysis indicates that at the end of twentieth century a rural-urban divide in manufacturing productivity still remains but there is a tendency of convergence between rural and urban location categories possibly due to increased competitive pressure. The industry composition effect is positively correlated with the industry productivity effect suggesting that locations with high productivity are also characterised by industrial structure enhancing productivity.