Macroeconomic Impacts on Bulgarian Agriculture during Transition

An unstable and erratic macroeconomy in an economy in transition might be expected to affect agricultural performance. This is tested for Bulgaria between 1992 and 1997 using impulse response functions from a vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Despite data limitations, it is found that shocks to the foreign exchange rate and interest rate feed into farm prices and agricultural exports but equilibrium will be re-established within 5 years. Agricultural policies may not be sufficient to counteract the wider macroeconomic forces.