Politicians and farm lobbyists frequently use the argument that agricultural policy is necessary to safeguard jobs in agriculture. We explore whether this is true by conducting an econometric ex-post evaluation of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the three East German...

Research on agricultural development in China has increasingly paid attention to the potentially negative effects of highly fragmented farm structures. This study provides a deeper theoretical understanding of the linkages between land fragmentation and off-farm labor supply and investigates...

Using a unique dataset of a commercial microfinance institution in Madagascar, this paper investigates how the provision of microfinance loans with (in)flexible repayment schedules affects loan delinquencies of agricultural borrowers. Flexible repayment schedules allow a redistribution of...

Welfare economics as the traditional, prescriptive theory framework used in agricultural economics has been criticised by institutional economists as being largely irrelevant to real-world policy issues. We therefore ask how normative statements are possible within an economic theory framework...

Based on farm panel data we empirically investigate the determinants of Polish farm households 'flexibility from 1994 to 2001. We focus on scale flexibility (adjustment in production volume) and scope flexibility (adjustment in product mix). The findings of our fixed-effects regression provide...

On the verge of EU accession, Poland’s agricultural sector is characterised by anumber of distinct structural weaknesses, which are a major reason for the unsatisfactoryincome situation of rural households. Among these weaknesses are thatfarm productivity is substantially below EU standards,...

On the verge of EU accession, Polandâs agricultural sector is characterised by a number of distinct structural weaknesses, which are a major reason for the unsatisfactory income situation of rural households. Among these weaknesses are that farm productivity is substantially below EU standards,...

The paper empirically investigates credit access and borrowing costs in Poland's rural financial market. We conduct an econometric analysis based on cross-sectional survey data including formal loans taken in the period 1997-1999. A hedonic regression of the effective interest rate, comprising...