Needs, Modes and Efficiency of Economic Organizations and Public Interventions in Agriculture

Bachev, Hrabrin (2010): Needs, Modes and Efficiency of Economic Organizations and Public Interventions in Agriculture.

Abstract

There has been a fundamental development in theory and understanding of market, private, collective and public organizations in recent years. This paper incorporates achievements of the interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences) and suggests a framework for assessing the needs and efficiency of economic organizations and public interventions in agriculture. Our new approach includes: study of farm and other agrarian organizations as a governing rather than production structure; assessment of comparative efficiency of alternative market, contract, internal, and hybrid modes of governance; analysis of level of transaction costs and their institutional (distribution and enforcement of de-facto rights between individuals, groups, organizations), behavioral (agents preferences, ability, bounded rationality, tendency for opportunism, risk aversion, trust), dimensional (frequency, uncertainty, assets specificity, and appropriability of transactions), natural, and technological factors; determination of effective horizontal and vertical boundaries of farms and other agrarian organizations; specification of the economic role of government and the needs for public interventions in agrarian sector; assessment of comparative of alternative forms of public involvement in agrarian sector (partnership, regulation, taxation, assistance, provision, in house organization, fundamental property rights modernization). The paper provides new powerful tools for understanding the agrarian organizations and their efficiency, and for improvement of public policies, collective actions, farming and business strategies, and academic analyses in that important sector of social life.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: market, private and public modes of governance, efficiency of farms and agrarian organizations, agricultural policies, transaction costs, New Institutional Economics
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D86 - Economics of Contract: Theory; L - Industrial Organization > L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance > L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure ; Size Distribution of Firms; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H44 - Publicly Provided Goods: Mixed Markets; L - Industrial Organization > L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance > L14 - Transactional Relationships ; Contracts and Reputation ; Networks; H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government; L - Industrial Organization > L3 - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise > L38 - Public Policy; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure ; Land Reform ; Land Use ; Irrigation ; Agriculture and Environment; L - Industrial Organization > L3 - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise > L33 - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprises and Nonprofit Institutions ; Privatization ; Contracting Out; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D73 - Bureaucracy ; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations ; Corruption; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior > L25 - Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D02 - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q0 - General > Q01 - Sustainable Development; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy; D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D23 - Organizational Behavior ; Transaction Costs ; Property Rights; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior > L22 - Firm Organization and Market Structure

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