Farm Capital Investment and Deviations from the Optimal Path

We identify farms’ optimal investment path in capital assets and compare it with their actual investment to assess the direction and extent of deviation from the optimal investment. A probit model is further used to investigate the determinants of the probability that a farmer over‐ or under‐invests in capital assets. We use a panel dataset of Dutch dairy farms over the period 2003–2013, and find that most farms under‐invest in capital assets during the study period. Although the number of farms that had over‐invested in capital assets is relatively small, these farms account for the biggest share of total investment in capital assets. The probit results show that liquidity, agricultural support payments, age, land tenure and standard output size are important variables explaining the likelihood of over‐and under‐investment.     

Study of the major supply factors and business choices affecting the growth rate of wine tourism in Greece

Wine tourism is considered one of the alternative forms of tourism internationally. Wine tourism combines wine production with tourism activities, mainly in agricultural areas, as it embraces the tourism interest for wine production and the enjoyment of vineyard activities by the tourists. Greece, as a well-known tourist destination, is actually a new wine tourism area that has still a long way to go before claiming that it can render high-quality services in this very competitive sector. The objective of this paper is to examine and present the extent of wine tourism development in Greece, the characteristics as well as the main business choices related to wine tourism supply, aiming at highlighting the necessary key elements that can play a decisive role in its further growth. In terms of this paper, we attempt to examine the Greek wine producer's viewpoint of wine tourism by setting out data related to the development of the product, the satisfaction of businessmen involved, the means used to promote the product, the difficulties faced by and the expectations set by wine producers. In order to achieve the aforementioned goals, a research was conducted by means of a constructive questionnaire sent to all major Greek wine producers from April to June 2007. The participants in the wine tourism industry in the country were considered a major source of information.     

Do Farmers Internalise Environmental Spillovers of Pesticides in Production?

Pesticides are used in agriculture to protect crops from pests and diseases, with indiscriminate pesticide use having several adverse effects on the environment and human health. An important question is whether the environmental spillovers of pesticides also affect the farmers’ production environment. We use a model of optimal pesticide use that explicitly incorporates the symmetric and asymmetric effect of pesticides’ environmental spillovers on crop production. The application focuses on panel data from Dutch cash crop producers. We show that pesticides have a positive direct impact on output and a negative indirect impact through their effects on the production environment.     

Heterogeneity of Long‐run Technical Efficiency of German Dairy Farms: A Bayesian Approach*

In parametric efficiency studies, two alternative approaches exist to provide an estimate of the long‐run efficiency of firms: the dynamic stochastic frontier model and the generalised true random‐effects model. We extend the former in order to allow for heterogeneity in the long‐run technical efficiency of firms. This model is based on potential differences in firm‐specific characteristics and in firms’ inefficiency persistence. The model is applied to an unbalanced micro‐panel of German dairy farms over the period 1999 to 2009. Estimation of long‐run technical efficiency and inefficiency persistence is based on an output distance function representation of the production technology and estimated in a Bayesian framework. The results suggest that heterogeneity in long‐run technical efficiency of farms is mostly attributed to discrepancies in farm‐specific factors rather than differences in farms’ inefficiency persistence. Farm size is positively related to long‐run technical efficiency while subsidies exert a negative effect on the long‐run technical efficiency of farms. Inefficiency persistence is found to be very high, but heterogeneity in this persistence is low.     

Can economic incentives encourage actual reductions in pesticide use and environmental spillovers?

Chemical pesticides constitute an important input in crop production. But their indiscriminate use can impact negatively agricultural productivity, human health, and the environment. Recently, attention is focused on the use of economic incentives to reduce pesticide use and its related indirect effects. The aim of this work is to assess the effectiveness of different economic instruments such as taxes and levies in encouraging farmers to decrease pesticide use and their environmental spillovers. A policy simulation model is employed using data from Dutch cash crop producers including two pesticide categories that differ in terms of toxicity and pesticides’ environmental spillovers. Four different instruments were selected for evaluation: pesticide taxes, price penalties on pesticides’ environmental spillovers, subsidies, and quotas. The results of the study indicate that even high taxes and penalties would result in a small decrease in pesticide use and environmental spillovers. Taxes that differentiate according to toxicity do not lead to substitution of high‐ with low‐toxicity pesticides. Subsidies on low‐toxicity products are not able to affect the use of high‐toxicity products. Pesticide quotas are more effective in reducing pesticide use and environmental spillovers.     

Derivation of netput shadow prices under different levels of pest pressure

In this paper, we propose a framework to derive agricultural netput shadow prices that assign values to netputs in terms of their contribution to technical and environmental efficiency. Our modeling approach is based on the dual representation of an event-specific data envelopment model and is applied to a panel dataset of Dutch arable farms. Results show that netput shadow prices vary significantly across pest pressure events, suggesting the relevance to consider the event-specific nature of the production technology when computing them. By revealing the relative importance of pesticides in terms of their contribution to environmental efficiency, this study provides a potential framework for constructing penalties aiming to internalize some portion of the social cost of pesticide use.     

Reducing Pesticide Use and Pesticide Impact by Productivity Growth: the Case of Dutch Arable Farming

This paper employs a dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to measure the composition of productivity growth of pesticides and the environmental impacts of pesticides. The application focuses on panel data of Dutch arable farms over the period 2003–07. A bootstrap regression model is used to explain farmers' performance, providing empirical evidence of the impact of producer‐specific characteristics and environmental factors. The results show that Dutch arable farms have substantial inefficiency in the use of pesticides and high pesticide environmental inefficiency, and appear rather unconcerned about the environmental impacts of their current pesticide use decisions on next period's production environment.     

Spatial Spillovers on Input‐specific Inefficiency of Dutch Arable Farms

Traditional benchmarking implicitly assumes that decision making units operate in isolation from their peers. For arable production systems in particular, this assumption is unlikely to hold in reality. This paper quantifies spatial spillovers on input‐specific inefficiency using data envelopment analysis and a second‐stage bootstrap truncated regression model. The bootstrap algorithm is extended to allow for the estimation of the parameter of the spatial weight matrix, which captures the proximity between producers. The empirical application concerns Dutch arable farms for which latitudes and longitudes are available. The average inefficiency across years was 3.87% for productive inputs and 2.98% for damage abatement inputs under variable returns to scale. For productive inputs technical inefficiency, statistically significant spillover effects from neighbours’ age and their degree of specialisation depended on the type of the spatial weight matrix used (inverse distance or k‐nearest neighbours). Statistically significant spillover effects of subsidy payments were adverse while statistically significant spillover effects from insurance payments were beneficial. For damage abatement inputs technical inefficiency, statistically significant adverse effects were found for neighbours’ age and subsidy payments and beneficial effects from neighbours’ insurance payments and their degree of specialisation.     

The Neoliberal Framework of EU Urban Policy in Action: Supporting Competitiveness and Reaping Disparities

This paper concerns the gradual proliferation of the neoliberal rationale in European Union urban policies towards a specific mode of competitiveness-oriented 'policy networking'. Empirical research on the policy network of the EU URBAN Initiative in Portugal and Greece illustrates the ineffectiveness of the current approach in acknowledging the socio-economic and political specificities that influence development prospects in lagging cities. The Commission's proposals on the reform of the Funds (2007-13) suggest the incorporation of EU urban programmes in the mainstream spatial policies framework. The rationale, however, remains unchanged. The context-free emphasis put in these proposals on the 'competitiveness' target mitigates the 'cohesion' objective and risks perpetuating uneven urban development trends.