Croatia is very close to meeting the requirements necessary for becoming a member of the European Union (EU). On February 6, 2008, the European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said that accession negotiations with Croatia are moving ahead well. As in all new member states (NMS), the...

"Increasing upsurge of extreme natural shocks jeopardizes the capacity of traditional social protection mechanisms to effectively manage risks and associated shocks. This paper analyzes the differentiated dynamics of formal and informal response mechanisms to shocks of surviving households of...

This paper reviews the expected effects of the current financial crisis and subsequent recession on the rural landscape, in particular the agri-food sector in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) on the basis of the structure of the rural economy and of different organisations and institutions....

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,...

Der Transformationsprozess Russlands von einer zentralstaatlich geplanten Volkswirtschafthin zu einer Marktwirtschaft nach westlichem Vorbild liefert eine aufschlussreiche Fallstudieüber die von William Baumol (1990) vertretene These der institutionellen Steuerbarkeit vonproduktivem...

The objective of this paper is to empirically detect credit rationing of Polish farms. Based on cross-sectional survey data and motivated by a microeconomic farm household model, this effort is pursued by a methodology consisting of three interrelated steps. These steps include the analysis of...

Empirical analysis of rural credit market failure has been of key scientific and political interest in recent years. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of various methods for measuring credit rationing of farms employed in the literature. Furthermore, based on a common analytical...

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...

Our aim is to investigate whether the direct payments and rural development measures of theEU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) do make jobs in agriculture safer. We work with adynamic labour demand equation that is augmented by the full set of policy instruments of theCAP. It is estimated on...

In this study, we theoretically and empirically investigate the determinants of Bt-maize adoption in German regions. Specifically, we ask how the regulatory framework, the farm structures as well as the socio-political environment of GM expansion in Germany have influenced regional adoption...