This article examines determinants of the agrarian structure in transition economies
with an emphasis on the role of rural households’ human capital. Land
reform and enterprise restructuring have resulted in a broad range of farm types,
such as cooperatives, partnerships, individual farms and combinations of these. In
the theoretical model the fact that household resources are allocated to different
organization modes is attributed to the utility maximization strategy of
heterogeneous agents deriving income from uncertain sources in the face of
incomplete factor markets. The empirical results from a multinomial logit model
estimated with data from a two-year nationwide survey of Romanian rural households
support the hypothesis that the current agrarian structure is importantly affected
by the human capital characteristics of the households and the economic risks they face.
Ahituv, A.
and
A. Kimhi
(2002)
‘Off-Farm Work and Capital Accumulation Decisions of Farmers over
the Life Cycle: The Role of Heterogeneity and State Dependence’
, Journal of Development Economics68:
329-353
.
2.
Agrawal, P.
(1999)
‘Contractual Structure in Agriculture’
, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization39:
293-325
.
3.
Akerlof, G.
(1970)
‘The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism’
, Quarterly Journal of Economics84:
488-500
.
4.
Allen, D.
and
D. Lueck
(1998)
‘The Nature of the Farm’
, Journal of Law and Economics41:
343-386
.
5.
Allen, F.
(1982)
‘On Share Contracts and Screening’
, Bell Journal of Economics13:
541-547
.
6.
Becker, G.
(1965)
‘A Theory of the Allocation of Time’
, Economic Journal75:
493-517
.
7.
Binswanger, H.
and
M. Rosenzweig
(1986)
‘Behavioral and Material Determinants of Production Relations in Agriculture’
, Journal of Development Studies22:
503-539
.
8.
Davidova, S.
and
K. Thomson
, eds (2003) Romanian Agriculture and Transition toward the
EU.
Lexington, MA: Lexington Books
.
9.
Euroconsult and CWFS
(1995) Farm Restructuring and Land Tenure in Reforming
Socialist Economies, World Bank Discussion Paper 268.
Washington, DC: World Bank
.
10.
Fafchamps, M.
and
A. Quisumbing
(1999)
‘Human Capital, Productivity, and Labour Allocation in Rural Pakistan’
, Journal of Human Resources34:
369-406
.
11.
Feder, G.
(1985)
‘The Relation between Farm Size and Farm Productivity: The Role
of Family Labour, Supervision and Credit Constraints’
, Journal of Development Economics18:
297-313
.
12.
Foster, A.
and
M. Rosenzweig
(1993)
‘Information, Learning, and Wage Rates in Low-Income Rural Areas’
, Journal of Human Resources28:
759-790
.
13.
Hallagan, W.
(1978)
‘Self-Selection by Contractual Choice and the Theory of Share-cropping’
, Bell Journal of Economics9:
344-354
.
14.
Heltberg, R.
(1998)
‘Rural Market Imperfections and the Farm Size-Productivity
Relationship: Evidence from Pakistan’
, World Development26:
1807-1826
.
15.
Higgs, R.
(1973)
‘Race, Tenure, and Resource Allocation in Southern Agriculture, 1910’
, Journal of Economic History33:
149-169
.
16.
Johannisson B.
and
K. Senneseth
(1993) ‘Paradoxes of
Entrepreneurship’, pp. 3-20 in
H. Klandt
(ed.). Entrepreneurship and Business Development.
Aldershot: Avebury
.
17.
Jolliffe, D.
(1997) Whose Education Matters in the Determination of
Household Income: Evidence from a Developing Country, Food Consumption and
Nutrition Division Discussion Paper No. 39.
Washington, DC: International Food Policy
Research Institute
.
18.
Knight, F.
(1957) Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.
New York: Kelley and Millan Inc.
19.
Kollo, J.
and
M. Vincze
(1999) Self-Employment, Unemployment and Wages: Regional
Evidence from Hungary and Romania, Budapest Working Papers on the Labour
Market, BWP 1999/7.
Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences and
Budapest University of Economics
.
20.
Lemieux, T.
(2002)
‘Decomposing Changes in Wage Distributions: A Unified Approach’
, Canadian Journal of Economics35:
646-688
.
21.
Lerman, Z.
(2001)
‘Agriculture in Transition Economies: From Common Heritage to Divergence’
, Agricultural Economics26:
95-114
.
22.
Lopez, R.
(1986) ‘Structural Models of the Farm Household
that Allow for Independent Utility and Profit Maximization
Decisions’, pp. 306-325 in
I. Singh
,
L. Squire
and
J. Strauss
(eds) Agricultural Household Models: Extensions, Applications and
Policy.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press
for the World Bank
.
23.
McFadden, D.
(1984) ‘Econometric Analysis of Qualitative
Response Models’, pp. 1396-1457 in
Z. Griliches
and
M. Intriligator
(eds) Handbook of Econometrics, Vol. II.
New York: North-Holland
.
24.
Mathijs, E.
and
J. Swinnen
(1998)
‘The Economics of Agricultural Decollectivization in East Central
Europe and the Former Soviet Union’
, Economic Development and Cultural Change47:
1-26
.
25.
Mathijs, E.
and
J. Swinnen
(2001)
‘Production Efficiency and Organization During Transition: An
Empirical Analysis of East German Agriculture’
, The Review of Economics and Statistics83:
100-107
.
26.
MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Food), European Commission and the World Bank
(1997) Private Agriculture in Romania: Farm Survey.
Bucharest: MAF
.
27.
Newbery, D.
and
J. Stiglitz
(1979) ‘Sharecropping, Risk Sharing and the
Importance of Imperfect Information’, in
J. Roumasset
,
L. Boussard
and
I. Singh
(eds) Risk, Uncertainty and Agricultural Development.
Laguna, Philippines and New York: Southeast
Asian Regional Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture and
Agricultural Development Council College
.
28.
Pratt, J.
(1964)
‘Risk Aversion in the Small and the Large’
, Econometrica32:
112-136
.
29.
Rao, C.
(1971)
‘Uncertainty, Entrepreneurship, and Sharecropping in India’
, Journal of Political Economy79:
578-595
.
30.
Rees, H.
and
A. Shah
(1986)
‘An Empirical Analysis of Self-Employment in the UK’
, Journal of Applied Econometrics1:
95-108
.
31.
Reid, J.
(1976)
‘Sharecropping and Agricultural Uncertainty’
, Economic Development and Cultural Change24:
549-576
.
32.
Rizov, M.
(2003)
‘Endogenous Production Organization during Market Liberalisation:
Farm Level Evidence from Romania’
, Economic Systems27:
171-187
.
33.
Rizov, M.
(2005)
‘Does Individualization Help Productivity of Transition Agriculture?’
, Agricultural Economics forthcoming.
34.
Rizov, M.
and
J. Swinnen
(2004)
‘Human Capital, Market Imperfections and Labor Reallocation in Transition’
, Journal of Comparative Economics32(4).
35.
Rizov, M.
,
D. Gavrilescu
,
H. Gow
,
E. Mathijs
and
J. Swinnen
(2001)
‘Transition and Enterprise Restructuring: The Development of
Individual Farming in Romania’
, World Development29:
1257-1274
.
36.
Sadoulet, E.
,
A. de Janvry
and
C. Benjamin
(1998)
‘Household Behaviour with Imperfect Labour Markets’
, Industrial Relations37:
85-108
.
37.
Sahn, D.
and
H. Alderman
(1988)
‘The Effect of Human Capital on Wages and the Determinants of
Labor Supply in a Developing Country’
, Journal of Development Economics29:
157-183
.
38.
Sandmo, A.
(1971)
‘On the Theory of the Competitive Firm under Uncertainty’
, American Economic Review61:
65-73
.
39.
Spillman, W.
(1919)
‘The Agricultural Ladder’
, American Economic Review9:
170-179
.
40.
Swinnen, J.
,
A. Buckwell
and
E. Mathijs
, eds (1997) Agricultural Privatisation, Land Reform and Farm
Restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe.
Aldershot: Ashgate
.
41.
Wydick, W.
(1999)
‘Credit Access, Human Capital and Class Structure Mobility’
, Journal of Development Studies35:
131-152
.
42.
Yang, D.
(1997)
‘Education and Off-Farm Work’
, Economic Development and Cultural Change45:
613-632
.
