Agricultural Economics, 2016 (vol. 62), issue 11
Agrarian import ban and its impact on the Russian and European Union agrarian trade performanceOriginal Paper
Lubos SMUTKA, Jindrich SPICKA, Natalia ISHCHUKOVA, Richard SELBY
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2016, 62(11):493-506 | DOI: 10.17221/294/2015-AGRICECON 
The main objective of the paper is to identify the impact of the Russian agrarian import ban on imports of certain agricultural products from Europe, Norway, Canada, the USA and Australia. The import ban particularly affected the import of competitive agricultural and foodstuff commodities into Russia. The ban was the result of the political and security tensions existing between the Russian Federation and the Western World, since early 2014. If we take into consideration the volume of the mutual trade and the importance of the mutual trade for each of the stakeholders mentioned above, it can be assumed that the main objectives of the Russian embargo...
Agricultural competitiveness: The case of the European Union countriesOriginal Paper
Anna NOWAK, Agnieszka KAMINSKA
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2016, 62(11):507-516 | DOI: 10.17221/133/2015-AGRICECON
The paper assesses the competitiveness of agriculture of 27 countries of the European Union in the years 2009-2011. Due to the complexity of the phenomenon of competitiveness, a wide range of variables was adopted to evaluate it - including the relationship between the production factors, productivity, and the importance of agriculture in the international trade. Based on the evaluation criteria chosen for the competitiveness assessment and using the TOPSIS method, a synthetic measure of the studied phenomenon was constructed and then divided into four groups of countries similar in terms of the level of competitiveness of agriculture. The difference...
Determining the optimal selling time of cattle: A stochastic dynamic programming approachOriginal Paper
Susana MEJIA, Andres Ramirez HASSAN
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2016, 62(11):517-527 | DOI: 10.17221/215/2015-AGRICECON
The world meat market demands competitiveness, and optimal livestock replacement decisions can help to achieve this goal. In the article, there is introduced a novel discrete stochastic dynamic programming framework to support a manager's decision-making process of whether to sell or to keep fattening animals in the beef sector. In particular, the presented proposal uses a non-convex value function, combining both economic and biological variables, and involving uncertainty with regard to price fluctuations. The methodology is very general, so the practitioners can apply it in different regions around the world. There is illustrated the model convenience...
Historical development of land ownership in the Czech Republic since the foundation of the Czechoslovakia until presentShort Communication
Ludek HOMOLAC, Karel TOMSIK
Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2016, 62(11):528-536 | DOI: 10.17221/250/2015-AGRICECON
The aim of the paper is to describe the land ownership relations in the area of the current Czech Republic since the foundation of Czechoslovakia. The description of the history of changes of land ownership in the Czech Republic is important for the perception of the current nature of the land use and land market. Land use and ownership was always related to the historical context and political regime. The time periods are divided by the important historical events: after 1918 (foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic), 2nd World War period, after 1948 (takeover of the power by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the centrally planned economy...