Farm Strategy,Self-Selection and Productivity: Can Small Farming Groups Offer Production Benefits to Farmers in Post-Socialist Romania?

This paper addresses two questions: why are Romanian farmers continuing to place land in cooperative forms of farming when theory suggests that private farming is more productive and, are there efficiency gains to be had from cooperative farming endeavors? Results from an econometric selection model suggest that smaller, endogenously developed farming cooperatives, such as family societies, provide benefits over private farming strategies under certain conditions. This paper questions the wholesale rejection of cooperation around production and challenges policy to move away from the typically dichotomized presentation of agrarian structure as being a trade off between private small-scale farming and large-scale collective farming.     

TECHNICAL,ECONOMIC, AND ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY IN PEASANT FARMING: EVIDENCE FROM THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

This paper presents measures of technical (TE), economic (EE), and allocative (AE) efficiency for a sample of sixty peasant farmers in the Dajabon region of the Dominican Republic. Maximum likelihood techniques are used to estimate a Cobb-Douglas production frontier, which is then used to derive its corresponding dual cost frontier. These frontiers are the basis for obtaining farm level efficiency estimates. The results reveal average levels of TE, AE, and EE equal to 70 per cent, 44 per cent, and 31 per cent, respectively. In a second step analysis, two-limit tobit regression techniques are used to estimate three separate equations where TE, EE, and AE are expressed as functions of the following farm/farmer characteristics: contract farming, agrarian reform status, farm size, schooling, producer's age, and household size.     

Manors and states: the distribution and structure of private manors in early modern Scandinavia and their relation to state policies

ABSTRACT

This article explores the development of private manors in Scandinavia between the reformation and the eve of the great agrarian reforms in Denmark ca. 1770 and their relation to state policies. It compares Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Skåne and Schleswig-Holstein. Firstly, it analyses the amount of land held by private landlords and the internal structure of the landholding class. It shows that it changed considerably over time, but in very different ways in the different territories. This is explained by the interaction of the nobility or landholding classes with the state power. Secondly, the article looks at the economic and spatial structure of manors with specific attention to the degree of demesne farming based upon corvee. It is discussed to which degree these manors came to follow the path of Gutsherrschaft or demesne lordship associated with the lands south of the Baltic. Demesnes of Scandinavia were erected and enlarged out of a mixture of agricultural economic considerations, tax evasion and status needs. Also this differed with territory. Part of the explanation is a different structure of the nobility emerging from massive ennoblements in Sweden, but also in other direct or indirect ways the state furthered, hindered or checked the development.     

The efficiency of small and medium enterprises in informal metal manufacturing in Zimbabwe: Implications for stakeholders in the agricultural sector

This study uses the structure–conduct–performance framework to examine the structure and efficiency of small and medium enterprises in the informal metal manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. Small and medium enterprises provide a lifeline to the country's resource-poor farmers, whose numbers increased exponentially after the agrarian reform in 2000. The study utilises nationally representative, enterprise-level data from five major towns (Harare, Chitungwiza, Bulawayo, Mutare and Rusape) in Zimbabwe. Various performance measures are applied at the industry level to assess efficiency, profitability and competitiveness; these include the Herfindahl–Hirschman index, concentration ratios, average yearly profits and Tobin's q ratio. The results indicate that small and medium enterprises in Zimbabwe are modestly efficient, profitable and competitive. These findings highlight the need to integrate informal metal fabrication activities into Zimbabwe's national economic development plans.     

The agricultural revolution and the conditions of the rural poor,southern Sweden, 1750–1860

The social consequences of agrarian change have been widely debated. The traditional view of the lower classes becoming increasingly vulnerable due to the loss of access to resources has been met with the revisionist view that this change was counteracted by an increase in the volume and regularity of employment due to investments and new farming practices. This article address this issue by studying the agricultural revolution in southern Sweden using aggregate data at the parish level. New micro‐level data on actual harvest outcomes, supplemented by price data, make it possible to differentiate between the development of the local economy and exogenous price shocks. Our results indicate a clear mortality response to harvest fluctuations in general and to harvest failures in particular. The response differed greatly between farming regions, being strongest in the areas most dependent on grain production. The response also diminished during the agricultural revolution, indicating the increasing efficiency of the local economy. This indicates employment effects in line with the revisionist view. At the same time, vulnerability to fluctuations in prices of basic foodstuffs remained high until the second half of the nineteenth century and was also quite similar across farming regions.     

Food Export: Looking to the East

A number of issues related to the functioning of the agrarian market in conditions of increasing export supplies are considered in the paper using the example of the grain sector of the Russian economy, and ways of overcoming possible disproportions in this sphere from the standpoint of national economic efficiency are proposed. The prospects of mutually beneficial Russian-Chinese cooperation in the agrarian sphere are shown.     

基于灰色关联法与区位熵的区域产业结构与经济增长关系探究——以重庆市万州区为例

研究产业结构与经济增长的关系能够优化产业结构,为地区发展提供一定的机遇。通过阐述万州区产业结构与经济增长的现状及特点,运用区位熵、灰色关联法对1978-2013年万州区产业结构与经济增长的关系进行实证分析,研究表明:万州区产业结构的变化发展与全国整体水平的变化发展未完全保持一致,仅有2008年前符合产业发展的一般演进规律;第一产业中种植业与林业的发展具有较为显著的比较优势;第二产业是推动万州经济增长的主要动力,其五大特色产业的发展较为均衡;第三产业中的批发零售贸易业与住宿餐饮业具有显著的比较优势,存在较大的发展潜力。在此基础上,提出优化万州区产业结构的对策建议。     

is China＇s Economic Growth Extraordinary or Mediocre？ The Role of the Exchange Rate

Results derived from evaluations using different measures for China＇s economic growth are divergent, especially when the RMB exchange rate has experienced large depreciation. Focusing on the changes in the RMB exchange rate matching the demands of economic development, we offer some plausible explanations for the variations in the evaluation results. The significant gaps between different economic performance evaluation results before the mid-1990s, and evidence from international comparisons of factor productivity indicate that the quality of economic growth in China is different from that of other economies. Evaluation of economic development should take into account both quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement. From this perspective, evaluation results indicate qualitative improvement in the Chinese economy after the mid-1990s.     

On the development strategy for the grain sector

This article attempts to outline a development strategy for the grain sector in agrarian economics under complicated conditions in the world economic relations and the processes of globalization and regional integration.     

Government action,cartels, and national corporations - the development strategy of a small peripheral nation during the period of crisis and economic disintegration in Europe. (Finland 1918–1938)

Abstract

This article examines a specific case, the national development strategy of a small peripheral economy, that of Finland, in the inter-war period of crisis and disintegration in Europe. Unlike the East-European agrarian latecomers, Finland, still a producer of raw-materials, was lifting herself closer to the relatively prosperous West-European level. It is shown that among the factors contributing to the rapid economic growth and forest-based industrial progress of Finland, the most important one was the successful set of means consisting of government action coloured by agrarian interests, the establishment of state-owned industrial corporations inspired by economic nationalism and entrepreneurial enthusiasm, and intensive cartellization, led by the private family firms of the export sector.     

中三角产业发展战略研究

中三角是由湖北、湖南、江西3省组成的产业与经济发展区域,位于我国中部内陆腹地。经过30多年的改革,中三角的产业发展取得了巨大的成就,但与我国经济较发达的地区的相比,中三角存在着一定的差距与问题,应采取相应的措施来促进中三角产业的发展。     

浅探江苏教育、科技、经济协调发展中的问题及对策

一个地区经济的持续稳定发展，离不开教育、科技的支持，经过改革开放二十多年的发展，江苏教育、科技与经济发展已达到一定水平，但与发达国家、地区相比，仍有一些差距，应采取有效措施进一步促进教育、科技与经济协调发展。     

GLOBALISATION, FACTOR PRICES, AND POVERTY IN COLONIAL INDIA

Analytical accounts of South Asian economic history often suggest that the principal effects of nineteenth century globalisation on the region were deindustrialisation and agrarian expansion, and that deindustrialisation contributed to an increase in poverty despite agricultural growth. Available wage datasets show that artisans did relatively well and rural workers relatively worse in the period in question, suggesting that poverty did increase but deindustrialisation was an unlikely cause. I discuss the wage statistics to show this, and propose that, in order to complete the globalisation story, we need to consider three local factors: limits to deindustrialisation, limits to labour mobility, and limits to agrarian expansion.     

实施稳健财政政策重在结构调整

我国财政政策从“积极”转到“稳健”三年来,宏观调控初见成效,但目前经济生活中存在的主要问题是收入差别明显、价格不均衡、财税政策的不完善和结构失衡。因此,2008年财政政策在总体“稳健”前提下更应注重结构调整,应加大政府转移支出的力度,优化经济结构;继续完善税制,促进经济增长;推进公共财政建设,关注民生问题。     

Rural women and state policy: The Latin American agrarian reform experience

This review of 13 Latin American agrarian reforms shows that most have directly benefited only men. It is argued that this is largely because of the common designation of ‘households’ as the beneficiaries of an agrarian reform and the subsequent incorporation of only male household heads into the new agrarian reform structures. It is shown that a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for rural women to benefit on par with men is that they too be designated as beneficiaries. Women as well as men must be given access to land or the opportunity to participate within the agrarian cooperatives or state farms promoted by an agrarian reform. This comparative analysis of the Latin American agrarian reform demonstrates that this has happened only in countries where the incorporation of rural women to the reform is an explicit objective of state policy.     

Estimating arable output using Durham Priory tithe receipts, 1341–1450

Research on English late medieval economic history has neglected the evidence of tithes as indicators of agrarian output. In this article, methods used by historians of continental Europe have been developed and applied to the Durham Priory accounting material in order to create the first series of tithe-based production indicators for medieval England. The data are manipulated, and presented, to provide insight into long- and short-term trends in aggregate levels of arable production. The series of indicators are then used to examine the evidence for falling output in the late middle ages in the light of our understanding of demographic, economic, and climatic factors.     

Villeinage in England: a regional case study,c.1250–c.13491

Between 1200 and 1349, villeinage was not prominent in Suffolk, and, even in those places where it was locally significant, many of its exactions were lightly enforced. The gap between the theory and practice of villeinage was maintained by custom, although this article emphasizes both the importance of regional custom and its mutability. The relative insignificance of villeinage here has two main implications: first, villeinage cannot have caused any crisis of agrarian productivity before the Black Death; and second, its subsequent dissolution cannot have been the prime mover behind the transformation of the landholding structure and the emergence of agrarian capitalism.     

农地产权认知状况与流转行为牵扯:湘省398户农户样本

农地产权制度是农地流转的制度前提,但农户对产权的认知会影响其农地流转行为尚缺乏经验证据支持。利用湖南省的样本数据采用统计分析方法和Logit回归模型分析发现,现阶段农户对农地产权的认知较薄弱,产权制度对农地流转的实际影响与这种认知状况有关,在控制多种农户特征后发现产权认知度对农地流转有显著的积极影响。因此,需要通过明晰农地产权、加强立法保障、加大产权宣传、设立产权交易机构等措施推动农地流转。     

AN INDUSTRIOUS REVOLUTION IN AN EAST ASIAN MARKET ECONOMY? TOKUGAWA JAPAN AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GREAT DIVERGENCE

This paper addresses a question raised by Jan de Vries' on the relationship between industriousness and the rise of the market in East Asia. Was the growing industriousness in Tokugawa Japan, as de Vries suggests, a substitute ‘for the absence of markets’? The examination refers to two versions of Chayanov's peasant farm model and their empirical relevance to the Tokugawa agrarian history, with special reference to the formation of labour‐intensive peasant farming (Akira Hayami's version of an industrious revolution), product specialisation, and the markets for production factors, land, and labour. Its implications for the Great Divergence debate are also discussed.     

城乡统筹发展与普惠金融体系构建

＂十二五＂规划中把城乡结构列为优先解决的结构问题之一,统筹城乡经济发展是解决我国＂三农＂问题的根本途径。而金融作为支持农村经济发展的重要力量不容忽视。本文认为,大力推进普惠金融体系的构建,加大金融强农惠农力度,是提高农民收入,缩小城乡收入差距,统筹城乡发展,实现包容性增长的必要举措。