Publications > Cahiers (English)> N° 51, 2nd term 1999

• Decomposition of olive oil production growth into productivity and size effects : A frontier production function approach, V. TZOUVELEKAS, K. GIANNAKAS, P. MIDMORE, K. MATTAS texte au format PDF
• Two-tier pricing and Agenda 2000. Consequences of EU dairy policy reform for Dutch dairy farming, M. BOOTS, J. PEERLING
• Utilisation de la méthode des prix hédonistes pour l'évaluation des aménités agricoles et forestières. Etats des lieux et données disponibles, B. MICHALLAND, D. VOLLET
  [Use of hedonic price method for estimation of agricultural and forestry amenities. Current situation and available data]

Decomposition of olive oil production growth into productivity and size effects : A frontier production function approach

Vangelis TZOUVELEKAS*, Konstantinos GIANNAKAS**, Peter MIDMORE***, Konstantinos MATTAS**** (* Department of Economics, University of Crete, Greece. e-mail: vangelis@cha.forthnet.gr ** Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 216 H.C. Filley Hall, Lincoln, NE 68583-0922, USA. e-mail: kgiannakas@unl.edu
*** Welsh Institute of Rural Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK. e-mail: pxm@aber.ac.uk **** Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. e-mail: mattas@agro.auth.gr )

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 51, 1999, pp 5-21

Summary – This paper investigates the relative contribution of technical efficiency, technological change and increased input use to the output growth of the Greek olive oil sector using a stochastic frontier production function approach applied to panel data. A flexible translog functional form is used to represent the underlying production technology and maximum likelihood procedure is implemented to estimate a single time trend model. Empirical results show that the overall efficiency of olive-growing farms in Greece remained stable during the period 1987-1993, while an inquiry into the sources of production growth shows that the contribution of conventional inputs was the main source of that growth, since total factor productivity increased in a slow rate during the study period.

Key-words : olive oil, Greece, productivity, technical change, technical efficiency.

Two-tier pricing and Agenda 2000. Consequences of EU dairy policy reform for Dutch dairy farming

Maroeska BOOTS*, Jack PEERLINGS**  (* Netherlands Energy Research Foundation ECN, Unit Policy Studies, P.O. Box 1, 1755 ZG Petten, The Netherlands. e-mail : M.Boots@ec.nl
** Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy Group, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Nether-lands. e-mail : Jack.Peerlings@Alg.AAE.WAU.NL )

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 51, 1999, pp 23-39

Summary — This paper analyses the effects, for Dutch dairy farming, of i) a two-tier milk price system, given different world market prices and ii) a combined 15 % cut in milk prices and a 1.5 % quota increase, compensated by a direct income payment (Agenda 2000) and iii) quota abolition. Our analysis shows that in the two-tier price system, with free quota trade, farmers will produce B-milk if the world market price is higher than NG 0.31/kg (0.14 euro). Profits increase because production increases. Implementing Agenda 2000 results in a profit decrease because quota rents diminish as a result of the cut in milk price support. The proposed direct payment per tonne of quota is too small to offset this fall in profit. A micro-econometric model of Dutch dairy farming is used to calculate the policy effects for individual farmers. These results are then aggregated to the level of the sector as a whole.

Key-words : two-tier pricing, Agenda 2000, dairy farming, micro-simulations.

Utilisation de la méthode des prix hédonistes pour l'évaluation des aménités agricoles et forestières. Etats des lieux et données disponibles
[Use of hedonic price method for estimation of agricultural and forestry amenities. Current situation and available data]

Béatrice MICHALLAND*, Dominique VOLLET* (* CEMAGREF, Unité de recherche Dynamiques et Fonctions des espaces ruraux, 24, avenue des Landais, BP 50085, 63172 Aubière cedex. e-mail : Béatrice.Michalland@cemagref.fr ; Dominique.Vollet@cemagref.fr )

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 51, 1999, pp 41-64

Summary – Because of the way the European agricultural policy is evolving, it has become most important to be able to estimate externalities of agriculture and forestry in order to legitimate the subsidies these two sectors may receive. Among methods of environmental economics, the hedonic price method has not been widely used in this type of application. Unlike the contingent valuation technique, it offers the advantage of being based on transactional data and not on survey findings, the interpretation of which are always liable to be biased in many ways. The method is based on the estimation of price differentials between goods with different characteristics (generally real estate, or agrifood products), to evaluate the implicit price attributed to each characteristic. The method thus permits an estimate of what consumers are willing to pay to obtain an improvement in the quality of their natural environment. The results obtained with the hedonic price method (especially in Great Britain and the US) show that agricultural or forestry amenities can account for an appreciable part of variations in real estate prices in rural areas (between 7 % and 30 % of the real estate price according to the country and the type of rural area). Even so, the hedonic price method comes up against at least three mainly empirical difficulties ; namely, choice of an area of appropriate size, choice of independent variables, and availability of data. The area size has to be great enough to have sufficient data to make econometric estimates. However, it must not be too great if it is not to invalidate the single market hypothesis. The independent variables concern the intrinsic characteristics of housing, locality, social environment, and environmental quality. In the choice of variables, three types of bias have to be avoided ; omission of one or more major explicative variable, multicollinearity in the data, and measurement bias due in particular to congestion phenomena. Data availability is a major problem for applications in France. Records such as those of the Chamber of Notaries or the Central Rural Land Development Company may prove useful. The main theoretical problem is the choice of the function form. Most authors use a linear, log-linear or semi-log specification. More complex specifications have also been implemented (e.g., quadratic Box-Cox model) but are not widely used. In all cases the quality of the implicit price estimate should be checked if the specification is changed.

Key-words : environmental economics, hedonic price method, agricultural externalities, forestry amenities.