SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Salvioni, Cristina; Esposito, Laura; Henke, Roberto; Rondinelli, V..

Using the data gathered by the Business Survey on Agriculture survey on a stratified random sample of Italian farm businesses below 4 European economic size units as a case study, this paper explores the diffusion of diversification strategies among small farms. The analysis has shown that more than a half of small farms is adopting some form of diversification. Small farms are more strongly involved in pluriactivity, while their involvement in broadening and deepening strategies appears only marginal. This latter result is partly due to the underevaluation of diversification caused by the lack of detailed statistical information about diversified activities used by farms, and, partly, due to the structural characteristics of small farms. Smaller farms are...

Análise de arranjos para extração de óleos vegetais e suprimento de usina de biodiesel

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Q12; R29; L25.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/53964

Sartori, Marco Antonio; Perez, Ronaldo; da Silva Junior, Aziz Galvao; Machado, Silvia Regina Sartori; Santos, Manoela Maciel de Souza; Miranda, Carlos Alberto de Castro.

This study aimed at the technical-economical evaluation of implanting some vegetal-oil extraction units in order to insert the family agriculture into bio-diesel production chain. Three project models (arrangements) for vegetal-oil extraction units at different sizes were proposed, using extraction by pressing and mixed extraction (extracting by either pressing or solvent) and different raw materials (castor-oil and soybean). For the size analysis, the oil production scales between 50/60 tons/day were used with real market data concerning investments, inputs prices of the process, raw materials and vegetal oil. For the economic analyses, the software BioSoft was used. The BioSoft is a program for supporting the decision-making process, which was developed...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Vegetal oil; Extraction; Viability; Crop Production/Industries; L25; D81; L69..

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/60807

Positional Advantage within Small Farms: Evidence from Illinois

Micheels, Eric T.; Gow, Hamish R..

As the economic viability of small farms continues to be an issue facing policy makers and economists alike, a market orientation may be a valuable resource producers can develop as they compete in a marketplace dominated by larger firms. Marketing and strategy scholars have long established the importance of a market orientation in determining firm performance. More recently, scholars have studied the effect of these concepts in agriculture. Extending the literature of market orientation in agriculture, this study examines the concept of a positional advantage and its effect on performance using a sample of small farms in Illinois. Using a sample of 347 Illinois beef producers, we empirically measure and test the construct of positional advantage and test...

Trade Costs and International Strategy of Firms: the Role of Endogenous Product Differentiation

Palavras-chave: Agriculture; Innovation; Market orientation; Positional advantage; Farm Management; Production Economics; L11; L25; L26.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/52810

Blanchard, Pierre; Gaigne, Carl; Mathieu, Claude.

We study the impact of trade liberalization on the international strategy of firms (to export and/or invest abroad as well as the number of varieties to be produced) when product differentiation is endogenous. By considering product differentiation as a strategic variable, our analysis sheds new light on the impact of trade barriers on the decision to produce abroad and on the choice of product range, in accordance with recent empirical evidence. We show, even though technology exhibits the same productivity for each variety, firms drop some of varieties with trade integration. In addition, our results reveal that, contrary to the standard theoretical literature, the relationship between the decision to export and trade costs is non-linear. When trade...

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Foreign direct investment; Exports; Multi-product competition; Endogenuos differentiation product; Trade integration; International Relations/Trade; F12; F23; L11; L25.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/121117

Consequences of Firms' Relational Financing in the Aftermath of the 1995 Mexican Banking Crisis

Trade Complexity and Productivity

Castañeda, Gonzalo.

This paper shows that, in the aftermath of the 1995 banking crisis, relational financing was a two-edged sword for firms listed on the Mexican Securities Market. On the negative side, only bank-linked firms observed on average a dependence on cash stock to finance their investment projects. On the positive side, the banking connection was important to boost their profit rates during the 1997-2000 period, at least for financially healthy firms. These econometric results are derived from dynamic panel data models of investment and profit rates, which are estimated by the Generalized Method of Moments, where level and difference equations are combined into a system.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Relational financing; Banking crisis; Internal capital markets; L25; D82; N26.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/37460

Altomonte, Carlo; Bekes, Gabor.

We exploit a panel dataset of Hungarian firms merged with product-level trade data for the period 1992-2003 to investigate the relation between firms' trading activities (importing, exporting or both) and productivity. We find important self-selection effects of the most productive firms induced by the existence of heterogeneous sunk costs of trade, for both importers and exporters. We relate these sunk costs of trade to the relationship-specific nature of the trade activities, entailing a certain degree of technological and organizational complexity. We also show that, to the extent that imports and exports are correlated within firms, failing to control for the importing activity leads to overstated average productivity premia of exporters.

Production Outsourcing, Organizational Governance and Firm's Technological Performance: Evidence from Italy

Palavras-chave: Trade Openness; Firms' Heterogeneity; Productivity; International Relations/Trade; F12; F14; L25.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/54170

Antonietti, Roberto; Cainelli, Giulio.

Aim of this paper is to study whether and how the firms decision to outsource production activities affects its technological performance. In particular, we look at how the alignment between the firms governance strategy and the underlying attributes of the transactions affects the capacity of the firm to introduce new products and processes. Using microeconomic data on a repeated cross-section of Italian manufacturing firms for the period 1998-2003, we develop a two-stage approach: first, we estimate the determinants of the firms organizational governance (production outsourcing); second, we incorporate a measure of governance misalignment into a technological performance relation. We find (i) that firms not aligned with the optimal organizational...

The Relationship Between Strategic Choices and Performance in Italian Food SMEs: A Resource-based Approach

Palavras-chave: Production Outsourcing; Organizational Governance; Misalignment; Technological Performance; Non-Linearity; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; L23; L24; L25; O31.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/9553

Carraresi, Laura; Mamaqi, Xhevrie; Albisu, Luis Miguel; Banterle, Alessandro.

In the context of progressive rise of the competition among firms, due to the increasing globalisation, it is interesting to understand the potential sources of competitive advantage in order to set up a successful strategy. The theory of Resource-based View used in this framework examines the connection among internal resources and strategic choices, and how the latter affect firm performance. The firm strategy is determined by available resources and capabilities which are deployed to obtain a good performance. Therefore, strategic choices act in between resources and performance. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the relationship between strategic choices and performance achieved by food SMEs, based on a set of distinctive resources. This approach...

An Innovative Tool to Assess Marketing Capabilities of Traditional Producers within the European Food Industry

Palavras-chave: Resource-based view; Strategic choices; SMEs; Food sector; Structural equation modelL11; L25; L66; Q13; Agribusiness.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114318

Banterle, Alessandro; Carraresi, Laura; Stranieri, Stefanella.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the marketing management capabilities of SMEs producing traditional food products in EU throughout the development of a benchmarking tool. SMEs represent the greater part of European food firms and they find it very difficult to adapt to market changes, and to compete with big enterprises. In this context, marketing management plays a key role in good SMEs performances in the market. The benchmarking tool, utilised to assess marketing capabilities, is aimed at improving critical points in the marketing area of traditional food firms by following the example of the best ones. This method is developed in the innovative form of an interactive questionnaire published on the Web. At the moment the sample is composed by 60...

How Can We Use the Result from a DEA Analysis? Identification of Firm-relevant Reference Units

Palavras-chave: Marketing capabilities; Traditional food; Benchmarking; Cluster analysis; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Industrial Organization; L25; L66; M31; Q13.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49769

Performance of traditional cooperatives: the Portuguese Douro wine cooperatives

Mansson, Jonas.

Two types of guidelines can be obtained from a DEA (data envelopment analysis) analysis. Firstly, the firm can reduce input or increase production according to the DEA results. Secondly, an inefficient firm might be able to identify reference units. This makes it possible for the inefficient firm to, on site, study production that is more efficient, and thereby get information on e.g. efficient organisational solutions. In this study, we focus on how to detect these firm-relevant reference units. While applying the existing methods for identification of reference units, i.e. the intensity variable method and the dominance method, on a data set concerning booking centres in the Swedish taxi market, shortcomings in these methods were identified. This...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Reference units; Firm-relevant; DEA; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; D24; L25.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/44072

Rebelo, Joao; Caldas, Jose Vaz; Matulich, Scott C..

Globalization is challenging the very core of cooperative governance and ownership decision, especially in Southern European countries, like Portugal, where a large number of producers are organized in traditional and Mediterranean-style agricultural cooperatives. This paper analyses the effects of governance and control variables related with size over two alternative indicators of performance: revenues transferred to members/patrons and capital structure. The results suggest that these cooperatives have difficulties being sustainable in the more competitive global wine markets, if they follow, essentially, a practice of maximum patronage refund, reducing their capacity to improve leverage and to finance more profitable, but risky, long run investments.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Crop Production/Industries; Q13; D22; L25.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/99100

FUNCTIONAL FOODS AS DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCTS

Bonanno, Alessandro.

Food products providing health benefits beyond nutrition, or functional foods, draw consumers’ attention and promise growth opportunities for innovator food manufacturers. European functional food manufacturers may be facing future challenges, mainly due to the European Union Regulation (EC) No.1924/2006 regulating food products’ health-claims. However, in spite of the interest shown by academics to understand the acceptance of these products no study exists that analyzes the profitability of functional foods. Using a relatively novel methodology – an adaptation of the LA/AIDS model by means of Pinkse Slade and Brett’s (2002) distance metric (DM) method – this article treats functional foods as differentiated products and provides estimates of demand and...

Production Efficiency and Diversification in Mexican Coffee-Producing Districts

Palavras-chave: Functional Foods; Differentiated Products; Distance Metric; Yogurt; Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Health Economics and Policy; L15; L25; L66.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/116420

Vedenov, Dmitry V.; Houston, Jack E.; Cardenas, Gabriela.

Coffee production system is analyzed for 24 municipios (districts) in Veracruz, Mexico, from 1997 to 2002. A stochastic frontier approach is used to estimate an input distance function and to evaluate production efficiency. Results show the production process to be stable over time despite global price fluctuations. Production of staple crop (corn) with either coffee or other cash crops results in increased efficiency as a result of the economies of complementarity, while production of coffee with other cash crops leads to lower efficiency. Factors contributing to higher efficiency included higher population density, road availability, and higher altitude, typically associated with production of higher-quality coffee.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Coffee production; Distance function; Mexico; Production systems; Stochastic frontier; Technical efficiency; L25; L79; O13; Q12.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/37063

DIVERSIFICATION OF RURAL TOURISM TROUGH PARTNERSHIP APPROACHES IN EASTERN EUROPE DESTINATION

Testing for Complementarity and Substitutability among Multiple Technologies: The Case of U.S. Hog Farms

Stankova, Mariva.

The societies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) contain many and diverse rural cultures which present myriad opportunities for small-scale, high income, locally controlled tourism generation. The negative impact of political and economic change has often been significant in the region’s rural areas. But with spatially and structurally dynamic mix of mass and specialist markets to target, there are increasing opportunities for rural attractions to act as a basic resource for tourism organized and sustained through locally owned small enterprises.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: New opportunities; Sustainable tourism development; Community/Rural/Urban Development; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Marketing; L25; L83.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/92354

Yu, Li; Hurley, Terrance M.; Kliebenstein, James B.; Orazem, Peter F..

We propose a strategy to identify the complementarity or substitutability among technology bundles. Under the assumption that alternative technologies are independent, we develop a hypothetical distribution of multiple technology adoptions. Differences between the observed distribution of technology choices and the hypothetical distribution can be subjected to statistical tests. Combinations of technologies that occur with greater frequency than would occur under independence are complementary technologies. Combinations that occur with less frequency are substitute technologies. This method is easily applied to simultaneous decisions regarding many technologies. We use the strategy to evaluate multiple technology adoptions on U.S. hog farms. We find that...

SME Performance, Innovation and Networking Evidence on Complementarities for a Local Economic System

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Livestock Production/Industries; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; O33; L25; C12.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/48530

Mazzanti, Massimiliano; Mancinelli, Susanna.

The paper addresses the relevancy of networking activities and R&D as main drivers of productivity performance and ouput innovation, for small and medium enterprises (SME) playing in a local economic system. Given the intangible nature of many techno organisational innovation and networking strategies, original recent survey data for manufacturing and services are exploited. The aim is to provide new evidence on the complementarity relationships concerning different networking activities and R&D in a local SME oriented system in Northern Italy. We first introduce a methodological framework to empirically test complementarity among R&D and networking, in a discrete setting. Secondly, we consequently present empirical evidence on productivity...

Effects on milk supply of different systems of livestock feeding

Palavras-chave: Firm Competitiveness; Innovation; R&D; Networking; Complementarity; Local Economic System; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; D21; L25; O3; O14; Z13.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/9554

Casasnovas, Valero L.; Aldanondo, Ana Maria.

Determining the competitive position of dairy farms depends on several technological, economic and institutional variables. Among them, are remarkable those related to animal feeding in the current context of high variability on prices. In this context, the aim of this study is to analyze the effects on milk supply and the competitiveness of dairy farms with different models of land intensification, with greater reliance on market purchases or self-production of livestock feed. This study is based on an econometric approach to a variable cost function, in a fixed effects model for unbalanced panel data of specialized dairy farms in Navarre (Spain). From this region, we use 3 geographical areas in relation to the availability of grazing land. It has been...

Information Cost As A Prior Hurdle to Exporting

Palavras-chave: Multiproduct cost function; Unbalanced panel data; Milk supply; Animal feed; Dairy farms.; Livestock Production/Industries; Production Economics; Q12; D24; L25.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103727

Wei, Xuan; Thornsbury, Suzanne.

In this paper, we empirically assess how information cost, as one component of trade costs, impacts the decision of an individual firm to export. Firm-level data measuring the difficulty of obtaining information about technical regulations in the European Union (EU) and the United States is used as a proxy for information cost to evaluate reduction in firm incentives to export. Results suggest that information cost significantly reduces the likelihood of exporting to these two destinations. Negative impacts are relatively larger for a firm exporting to the United States than to the EU.

Do Competition and Ownership Matter? Evidence from Local Public Transport in Europe

Palavras-chave: Information cost; Trade costs; Non-tariff; Technical barriers to trade; Probit; International Relations/Trade; Political Economy; F14; L25.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103622

Boitani, Andrea; Nicolini, Marcella; Scarpa, Carlo.

This paper investigates how the ownership and the procedure for the selection of firms operating in the local public transport sector affect their productivity. In order to compare different institutional regimes, we carry out a comparative analysis of 72 companies operating in large European cities. This allows us to consider firms selected either through competitive tendering or negotiated procedures. The analysis of the data on 77 European firms over the period 1997-2006 indicates that firms operate under constant returns to scale. Retrieving the residuals we obtain a measure of total factor productivity, which we regress on firm and city characteristics. We find that when firms are totally or partially in public hands their productivity is lower....

Determinants of Profitability Performance: An Analysis of Class I Railroads in the United States

Palavras-chave: Local Public Transport; Public Ownership; Translog Production Function; Financial Economics; C33; K23; L25; L33; L91.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/59392

Allen, Albert J.; Shaik, Saleem; Myles, Albert E.; Yeboah, Osei-Agyeman.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the impact of internal and external variables on the net profit margins of Class I railroads for the period 1996-2009. Parameter coefficients show that market concentration had a significant and negative impact on the net profit margins of the carriers.