Patterns and causes of growth of European agricultural production, 1950-2005

The aim of this work is to analyze the evolution of agricultural production in Europe after World War Two. To study the evolution of production, we want to find the causes of its growth. We will start with the role played by the factors of production. We will also want to estimate the contribution to output growth from improvements in efficiency, for which we will calculate the total factor productivity growth. Preliminary results show three possible patterns to explain the evolution of agricultural production. The first one which included Western countries and Germany based their growth in the raised efficiency and a higher use of capital. The opposing model is that of the countries with centrally planned economies. In this group of countries the use of capital was crucial. The efficiency of the system improved, but by considerably less than in the rest of Europe. The intermediate situation is that of the lesser developed countries in the southern European periphery and the Nordic countries, but in distinction to those of the Soviet bloc, they tended to converge much earlier with the model of the Western countries.