Agricultural Economics, 2011 (vol. 57), issue 3
Economic results of agricultural enterprises in 2009
F. Střeleček, J. Lososová, R. Zdeněk
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(3):103-117 | DOI: 10.17221/175/2010-AGRICECON 
Every year, an analysis of economic results of a sample of agricultural enterprises farming in various production and climatic conditions in the territory of the Czech Republic is carried out by applying economic statistical methods. Based on these results, long-term trends of economic results and their influencing factors are defined. This article is based on the analysis of development of economic indicators of a sample of agricultural enterprises in the Czech Republic in the period 2003-2009, divided according to the proportion of the LFA. The year 2009 brought, in comparison with the previous years, a strong deterioration in economic results. In...
Comparative advantages and complementarity of Sino-US agricultural trade: An empirical analysis
Chuanmin SHUAI, Xi WANG
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(3):118-131 | DOI: 10.17221/46/2010-AGRICECON
By adopting the RCA, CMS, TCD, SI and TCI models, this paper has made an empirical analysis of the comparative advantages and complementarity of the agricultural trade between China and the United States in terms of sixteen major agricultural products since 1997. The results indicate that (1) the exporting agri-products of China and the United States reflect the characteristics of the resource endowment of each country; (2) China's agri-product competitiveness has decreased after its WTO accession, while the country's agri-export structure has been upgraded; (3) Sino-US agri-trade dependency continues to rise, and the U.S. relies more on China than...
Modeling and forecasting volatility in global food commodity prices
Ibrahim A. ONOUR, Bruno S. SERGI
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(3):132-139 | DOI: 10.17221/28/2010-AGRICECON
To capture the volatility in the global food commodity prices, we employed two competing models, the thin tailed the normal distribution, and the fat-tailed Student t-distribution models. Results based on wheat, rice, sugar, beef, coffee, and groundnut prices, during the sample period from October 1984 to September 2009, show the t-distribution model outperforms the normal distribution model, suggesting that the normality assumption of residuals which are often taken for granted for its simplicity may lead to unreliable results of the conditional volatility estimates. The paper also shows that the volatility of food commodity prices...
Consumer's behaviour on food markets
Karel ŠRÉDL, Alexandr SOUKUP
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(3):140-144 | DOI: 10.17221/7/2010-AGRICECON
The article is interested in the problems of consumer's behaviour in the food market and namely the determining factors of his (her) behaviour according to the neoclassical theory approaches and its modern modifications, which are compared here with the concepts of other authors. It also is interested in the possibilities of the marginalist analytical apparatus in the consumer's decision-making.
Breadth and depth of promotional sales in food retailing
Thomas GLAUBEN, Kristin HANSEN, Jens-Peter LOY, Christoph R. WEISS
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(3):145-149 | DOI: 10.17221/158/2010-AGRICECON
Temporary price reductions (sales) as a means of promotion have become an increasingly important tool in the marketing mix of food retailers around the world. This paper investigates the retailers' pricing strategy by explicitly accounting for the multi-product nature of retailing. We find that retailers systematically adjust the breadth and depth of sales over time and they respond aggressively to their rivals' promotional activities. Finally, the breadth and depth of sales are found to be substitutes in the set of the available strategies to increase the store traffic.
Economic classification and regression problems and neural networks
Arnošt VESELÝ
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(3):150-157 | DOI: 10.17221/50/2010-AGRICECON
Artificial neural networks provide powerful models for solving many economic classifications, as well as regression problems. For example, they were successfully used for the discrimination between healthy economic agents and those prone to bankruptcy, for the inflation-deflation forecasting, for the currency exchange rates prediction, or for the prediction of share prices. At present, the neural models are part of the majority of standard statistical software packages. This paper discusses the basic principles, which the neural network models are based on, and sum up the important principles that must be respected in order that their utilization in...