Agricultural Economics, 2011 (vol. 57), issue 8

Modelling structural changes in the poultry meat demand - the case of Slovakia

Peter BIELIK, Daniela HUPKOVÁ

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(8):363-369 | DOI: 10.17221/105/2011-AGRICECON  

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the households' poultry meat consumption using the main economic factors. The price, income and cross-price elasticities of the poultry meat demand were estimated. The impact of the BSE disease occurrence and the accession of Slovakia into the EU are incorporated into the modelling. The Household Budget Survey of the Slovak Statistical Office was used for the period 1993-2009; the general fixed effects panel data model was applied. With respect to the modelling results, the significant variables that the affect poultry meat consumption are the pork meat price, the poultry meat price,...

Modelling the factor content of agricultural trade

Ján POKRIVČÁK, Pavel CIAIAN, d'Artis KANCS

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(8):370-383 | DOI: 10.17221/116/2010-AGRICECON  

This article examines the factor content of agricultural trade in the Central and East European (CEE) transition countries. It relates the factor content of agricultural trade to the cross-country differences in technology stemming from different farm organisations between the CEE countries agricultural sectors and to the differences in relative factor endowments. The relative factor endowments alone do not satisfactorily explain agricultural trade flows in the CEE countries. We find that transaction costs and market imperfections that affect the organisation of production also distort farm specialisation and hence V the actor content of agricultural trade.

Looking for the evidence of socio-economic convergence within the European Union

Artan QINETI, Eva MATEJKOVÁ, Miriam PIETRIKOVÁ, Roman SERENČEŠ, Marián Tóth, Marek DVOŘAK

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(8):384-393 | DOI: 10.17221/93/2011-AGRICECON  

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evidence and impact of the EU integration between 1999 and 2009 on the EU regional economic growth and the socio-economic convergence. A regional convergence analysis is performed in order to examine if the EU overall aim of convergence is reached. The main growth- and convergence theories are used as the theoretical framework and form the study's hypothesis. The results show that an absolute β-convergence exists between the EU member states as well as regions. However, the σ-convergence is not confirmed, meaning that that the disparities between the regions are rather increasing than decreasing....

Crude oil price variability and its impact on ethanol prices

Jan POKRIVČÁK, Miroslava RAJČANIOVÁ

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(8):394-403 | DOI: 10.17221/42/2010-AGRICECON  

The world annual biofuel production has exceeded 100 billion litres in 2009. The development of the biofuel production is partly influenced by the government support programs and partly by the development of oil prices. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the statistical relationship between ethanol, gasoline and crude oil prices. We aim to check the correlation among these variables and to analyze the strength and direction of a possible linear relationship among the variables. We are interested in analyzing how each variable is related to another, so we evaluate the inter-relationship among the variables in the Vector Autoregression (VAR)...

Comparison of the income development and the food demand elasticities of the private households in Slovakia

Ľubica KUBICOVÁ, Zdenka KÁDEKOVÁ

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2011, 57(8):404-411 | DOI: 10.17221/36/2010-AGRICECON  

The paper deals with assessing the development of monetary incomes and expenditures of the Slovak households for food using the classification of households by income quartiles and by consumer spending. The analysis confirms the significant differences and unbalanced income distribution. Households in the fourth income quartile dispose of 2.8 times higher incomes than the families in the first quartile. There have been analyzed the food groups that in terms of expenditures represent the part in the food basket higher than 6%. The results confirm that income differentiation of households is also reflected in their different behavior in the food market....