The use of efficiency as a measurement of relative competitive position of agricultural enterprises in domestic market
1999
Alemu, S.T., (Slovenska Polnohospodarska Univ., Nitra (Slovak Republic))
This paper has tried to investigate the competitiveness of the Slovak agricultural enterprises, that have emerged after 1990-1991 as a result of transformation of Slovak agriculture. To analyze their level of competitiveness, these enterprises were divided into four categories - state farms, cooperative farms, corporate farms and proprietor farms on the basis of their common characteristics like type of ownership, farm size, number of workers, level of mechanization and others. Analysis of relative competitive position of particular category of agricultural enterprise was made on the basis of economic efficiency. Economic efficiency was estimated using non-parameter method called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which can be solved as a linear programming problem. Cost frontier and economic efficiency for each form of agricultural enterprise were estimated using computer package called GAMS. The obtained empirical results of economic efficiency were in favour of corporate farms. Which means corporate farms are efficient in production and realization of agricultural goods and services. Efficiency in agricultural activities in the mean time implies, this category of farms most likely to have the best competitive position in domestic martket than the other forms of agricultural enterprises. However, the growth rate of efficiency was in favour of cooperative farms as their efficiency in the average showed higher and positive growth than their counterparts of all other forms of agricultural enterprises. These controversial results explain the fact, that even if corporate farms are competitive during the observed period, in the long run cooperative farms most likely can overcome the corporate farms and become equally or even more competitive in domestic market
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