Productivity growth and inter-sector spill-over in Dutch horticulture, 1976–1995

This article calculates nonparametric measures of total factor productivity growth on Dutch horticultural firms in the period 1976–1995. Individual components of total factor productivity growth, i.e., efficiency change and technical change are regressed on socioeconomic factors reflecting the effects of the world oil crises, household and demographic characteristics, location, and investment in physical capital. Also, the article investigates the presence of inter‐sector spill‐overs between groups of firms with different specializations in Dutch horticulture.     

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.     

Efficiency of Cooperatives and Investor Owned Firms Revisited

The objectives of dairy processing cooperatives differ from those of investor‐owned firms (IOFs). However, the literature usually assumes the same performance measures for cooperatives vis‐a‐vis IOFs. This study compares the performance of dairy cooperatives and IOFs in major European dairy producing countries. A traditional input oriented approach is used and two alternative approaches are used to account for the differential objectives of cooperatives. Cooperatives’ performance differs across the two approaches from being outperformed by IOFs using the input oriented approach to outperforming them when using an approach that is more in line with cooperatives’ objectives.     

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 impact of the 2008 financial crisis on dynamic productivity growth of the Spanish food manufacturing industry. An impulse response analysis

The emergence of a financial crisis is an event that can impact the fortunes of nearly all economic agents. The focus here is on the 2008 financial crisis and how firms’ productivity growth was impacted by this crisis in the years that followed. This article focuses on dynamic productivity growth and its components using a firm‐level data set of Spanish meat processing, dairy processing, and oils and fats firms. The impulse response analysis shows that the impact of the crisis on dynamic productivity growth is negative and persistent in the oils and fats industry, initially positive but then negative in the meat processing industry, and positive in the dairy processing industry. The observed magnitudes of change in indicator are between 2% and 5% for oils and fats industries, and of 1% in both dairy and meat industries. Our analysis further confirms that firms’ size is an important factor in explaining how crisis impacts dynamic productivity growth and its components, while we find only slight evidence regarding the firms’ experience in the market.     

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.     

Farmers’ Preferences For Bluetongue Vaccination Scheme Attributes: An Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Approach

Re‐emergence of the bluetongue disease in Europe poses a continuous threat to European livestock production. Large‐scale vaccination is the most effective intervention to control virus spread. Compared to command‐and‐control approaches, voluntary vaccination approaches can be effective at lower costs, provided that farmers are willing to participate. We use a discrete choice experiment to estimate the preferences for vaccination scheme attributes, accounting for preference heterogeneity via an integrated choice and latent variable approach. In designing livestock disease control schemes, it is often argued that governments should use financial, incentive‐based policy instruments to compensate farmers for externalities, assuming they act in rational self‐interest. Our results suggest that in addition to economic motives, farmers can have intrinsic or social motives to invest in livestock disease control. Implications for the effectiveness of providing subsidy or information to motivate voluntary participation are discussed.     

Dynamic Area Allocation and Economies of Scale and Scope

This article applies the adjustment cost framework to the case of area allocation by simultaneously determining the levels of input demand and output supply. Dynamic measures of economies of scale and scope are defined for output‐specific areas. An application to a rotating sample of Dutch cash crops reveals that farmers have a strong incentive for specialisation, but that large adjustment costs for area allocation resulting in small adjustments toward the optimal level prevent them from doing so.     

Semi‐parametric Modelling of Investments in Heating Installations: The Case of the Dutch Glasshouse Industry

This paper applies a semi‐parametric approach to estimating a generalised model of investments in heating installations. The results suggest that marginal costs of investments in heating installations increase quickly at small investment levels, whereas the increase slows down at higher investment levels. Therefore, standard parametric adjustment cost models are probably biased such that they underestimate the costs of small investments and overestimate the costs of large investments. Results also show that investments in heating installations are very responsive to changes in energy prices. Therefore, an energy tax may be an effective instrument to encourage investments in new energy‐saving heating installations.