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...

The research objective is to shed light on the structural adjustment process of farming enterprises in Switzerland. To this end, an analytical tool is developed which allows us to identify the most important influencing factors and to estimate in advance their effects on the structural...

This paper addresses the potential for interlinked credit/input/output marketing arrangements for cash crops to promote food crop intensification. Using panel survey data from Kenya, we estimate a household fixed-effects model of fertilizer use per hectare of food crops. Results indicate that...

Though Thailand is the largest rice exporting country, its yield is relatively low. This might be a result of the under use of purchased input factors. Amongst other factors, high input prices and capital constraints could be some reasons. The latter could be removed by loans providing favorable...

Access to credit is one strategy for promoting the adoption of yield-enhancing technologies. However, advancing credit to smallholder farmers for encouraging technology adoption is a complex policy issue. The objective of this paper is to identify appropriate and sustainable credit repayment...

In this paper we compare the changes in farm incomes in EU regions and US States between 1989 and 2002. The aim of this comparative analysis is highlight the patterns of convergence or divergence and how they d iffer over time. We use two recent analytical instruments: non-stationary panel...

The paper aims at studying the challenges of agricultural finance in Armenia. Strengthening the rural credit markets and institutions in Armenia is of paramount importance. The study reviews and analyzes the outcomes of the Agricultural Credit Club Program implemented by the US Department of...

The study is devoted to the comparative static analysis and econometric estimation of farm household decisions under both standard and agricultural taxes. Accounting for labor market constraints a non-separable model is constructed implying increasing per-unit costs of accessing labor markets....

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/25/03.

Analytical results in the literature suggest that counter-cyclical payments create risk-related incentives to produce even if they were "decoupled" under certainty (Hennessy, 1998). This paper develops a framework to assess the risk-related incentives to produce created by commodity programmes...