Agricultural Economics, 2020 (vol. 66), issue 2

Investments of Czech farms located in less favoured areas after EU accessionOriginal Paper

Radek Zdeněk, Jana Lososová

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2020, 66(2):55-64 | DOI: 10.17221/212/2019-AGRICECON  

This paper investigates the development and structure of the fixed assets of Czech farms and their investment behaviour. We use data from a long-term (2003-2016) survey of farms and categorise farms into three groups according to their share of agricultural land in less favoured areas. The development of tangible fixed assets and their structural development points to the importance of investments to agricultural holdings. Above all, there is an extensive trend of investing in the land, but purchases of land are likely to affect the growth of the relative age of tangible fixed assets, especially the obsolescence of buildings that are not sufficiently...

Technical efficiency of agriculture in Western Balkan countries undergoing the process of EU integrationOriginal Paper

Aleksandra Marcikić Horvat, Bojan Matkovski, Stanislav Zekić, Boris Radovanov

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2020, 66(2):65-73 | DOI: 10.17221/224/2019-AGRICECON  

The main goal of this paper is to compare the relative technical efficiency of agriculture in Western Balkan countries to those of the European Union and to propose ways to improve the position of Western Balkan countries. The group of Western Balkan countries includes Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Albania, which are candidate countries for European Union membership, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is currently a potential candidate. An input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis model with the variable return to scale was applied to an 11-year period from 2006 to 2016. Input variables used in the model included labour, land, and capital,...

A spatial equilibrium analysis of using agricultural resources to produce biofuelOriginal Paper

Chih-Chun Kung, Tao Wu

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2020, 66(2):74-83 | DOI: 10.17221/201/2019-AGRICECON  

In order to alleviate the potential damage from climate change and fulfil the requirements contracted in the Paris Agreement (COP 24), China has promulgated the mandatory regulation on ethanol-blend gasoline to reduce current levels of CO2 emissions. Since large-scale bioenergy development involves various aspects such as feedstock selection (energy crops, crop wastes), technology alternatives (conventional and cellulosic ethanol, pyrolysis), government subsidy (land use, energy crop subsidy) and carbon trade mechanism, an analysis that integrates economic, environmental, and social effects is necessary to explore the optimal biofuel strategy and social...

Analysis of meat price volatility and volatility spillovers in FinlandOriginal Paper

Marwa Ben Abdallah, Maria Fekete Farkas, Zoltan Lakner

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2020, 66(2):84-91 | DOI: 10.17221/158/2019-AGRICECON  

Unforeseen important changes in price can present a significant risk in the market. The price fluctuation of agricultural commodities has raised concern for studying the volatility of different agricultural products. A persistent volatility in prices causes continued uncertainty in the market. Higher price volatility is to be mitigated by higher management costs and the higher cost of risk mitigation is often converted into higher producer prices. The aim of this paper is to investigate the price volatility of producer and consumer meat prices and to capture the volatility spillover along the Finnish meat supply chain. The Generalised Autoregressive...

Heterogeneous impact of price spikes across countries and supply chain actors: An evidence from Central Asia and the Caucasus. A reviewReview

Ihtiyor Bobojonov, Ivan Duric, Thomas Glauben

Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2020, 66(2):92-100 | DOI: 10.17221/130/2019-AGRICECON  

The causes of food price spikes are complex, and their impact on different countries varies depending on production levels and the varied policies in place. Countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) region have implemented a wide range of reforms that vary in form and speed. The existing scientific literature reports about the consequences of price spikes in CAC; however, to date, a comparison of impact between those countries has not been made in terms of the entire supply chain perspective. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of the price spikes on the entire wheat supply chain for the first time in CAC and discusses the role of...