Browsing by Subject "Strukturwandel"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Climate change and agricultural structural change : the relevance for machinery use and acquisition in Germany
(2021) Mendoza Tijerino, Francisco Antonio; Berger, Thomas
This thesis is a contribution to the research project “Regional Climate Change,” funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG – Forschergruppe 1695 Regionaler Klimawandel). The projects objective was to learn about the vulnerability and sensitivity of typical land systems in Southwest Germany and identify suitable strategies for adaptation. The doctoral work contributes with empirical and methodological insights of farmers likely management adaptations in light of the farm managerial challenges arising from climate and structural change in Germany. The agricultural structure in Germany has strongly changed in the last 60 years. Where before numerous small-scale and labor-intensive farms were observed, it is now the place where fewer and highly mechanized farms contribute to agricultural production. The ongoing agricultural structural change in Germany is characterized by a trend in which many farms exit the agricultural sector, and the remaining --growth-oriented-- farmers take over the land, reorganize their farm business, and expand their operations. Nevertheless, this trend of farm growth, which is expected to continue in the future, poses significant challenges at the farm management level: Decisions on machinery use and acquisition play a crucial role in shaping the farm cost structure, and represent a critical element for maintaining competitiveness. Particularly for the expansion efforts, farm managers face a highly complex decision-making process to acquire the proper machinery capacities for field operations. Moreover, an additional factor will need to be considered for adequate decision-making: Climate change developments and the uncertainties associated with this process will likely increase the complexity of the farmers decision-making regarding the best reorganizational strategies towards farms expansion. Changes in the natural conditions for crop growth and development will likely result in management adaptations, e.g., changing the timing for fieldwork operations or changing land-use patterns. An analysis of the complex interactions and interdependencies between the environment and the farm system, on the one hand, and the resources and production possibilities available to the farm manager in the course of farm expansion on the other hand, require adequate tools of analysis. This work analyzes three dimensions of farm machinery management in the context of climate change and agricultural structural change. The first element of analysis corresponds to an examination of the sensibility of land-use and machinery investment decisions to climate change scenarios with the agent-based MPMAS model constructed for Central Swabian Jura in Southwest Germany. The Central Swabian Jura MPMAS model is a constitutive part of the bioeconomic modeling system MPMAS_XN. The MPMAS_XN system integrates the agricultural economic agent-based software MPMAS and the plant-soil modeling software Expert-N (XN) into a fully coupled system. The assessment of the sensibility and responsiveness of the MPMAS component revealed complex adaptation responses of land-use and machinery investment decisions as a result of shifted timing in fieldwork operations (e.g., harvesting or fertilization tasks). The second element of analysis corresponds to an examination of economies of size arising from farm machinery use and acquisition decisions in arable farms that follow a typical crop rotation practiced in Germany. For the analysis, a whole-farm multiperiod mathematical program implemented in the agent-based software MPMAS was employed. Optimizations were run and evaluated at a broad range of farm sizes and two distinctive distributions of availability of fieldwork days estimated for Southwest Germany. The results allowed observing patterns of optimal farm machinery demand and cost curves for several evaluated farm sizes and distributions of available fieldwork days distributions. The third main element of this work corresponds to a methodological contribution to the MPMAS_XN model system. Within this element, the implementation, functioning, and potential of an external theory-based MPMAS module are presented. The external module represents dynamics for joint machinery investments among simulated farm agents and serves as an enhancing methodological contribution for analyzing and representing farm machinery management in the agent-based software MPMAS.
Decomposing a decomposition : within-country differences and the role of structural change in productivity growth
(2019) Mühlen, Henning; Escobar, Octavio
In this article, we investigate the relevance of structural change in country wide productivity growth considering within-country differences. For this purpose, we propose a two-step decomposition approach that accounts for differences among subnational units. To highlight the relevance of our procedure compared to the prevalent approach in the existing development literature (which usually neglects subnational differences), we show an application with data for the Mexican economy. Specifically, we contrast findings obtained from country-sector data on the one hand with those obtained from (more disaggregated) state-sector data on the other hand. One main insight is that the qualitative and quantitative results differ substantially between the two approaches. Our procedure reveals that structural change appeared to be growth-reducing during the period from 2005 to 2016. We show that this negative effect is driven mainly by the reallocation of (low-skilled) labor within subnational units.
Outlier detection in structural time series models : the indicator saturation approach
(2014) Proietti, Tommaso; Marczak, Martyna
Structural change affects the estimation of economic signals, like the underlying growth rate or the seasonally adjusted series. An important issue, which has attracted a great deal of attention also in the seasonal adjustment literature, is its detection by an expert procedure. The general–to–specific approach to the detection of structural change, currently implemented in Autometrics via indicator saturation, has proven to be both practical and effective in the context of stationary dynamic regression models and unit–root autoregressions. By focusing on impulse– and step–indicator saturation, we investigate via Monte Carlo simulations how this approach performs for detecting additive outliers and level shifts in the analysis of nonstationary seasonal time series. The reference model is the basic structural model, featuring a local linear trend, possibly integrated of order two, stochastic seasonality and a stationary component. Further, we apply both kinds of indicator saturation to detect additive outliers and level shifts in the industrial production series in five European countries.
Prozess der Transformation der Landwirtschaft Usbekistans und Probleme bei der Umstrukturierung der landwirtschaftlichen Betriebe
(2002) Nazarkulov, Umidjan Rakhimjanovich; Zeddies, Jürgen
Privatization of agricultural enterprises in former soviet countries has led to changes in production structure, methods of production and management of enterprises. Hence, the main objective of this dissertation is, at first, analysis of development of the agrarian sector and agricultural enterprises on the example of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and the identification of their weaknesses and problems. Furthermore aspects of management and marketing are considered and recommendations on improving the strategy of optimization the production process, which will serve as a basis for decision-making in the appropriate organizations. The structural changes in typical farms of 3 regions of the Republic of Uzbekistan under different frame conditions are analyzed using a linear programming model. The results of these optimization calculations are leading to the following requirements: - Change of the production structure and reduction of the state influence and governmental control; - Cancellation of fixed state prices of cotton and wheat with a simultaneous increase of water taxes; - Reduction of labour input and increase of wages with the purpose of improving the motivation and efficiency of labour; - Extension of the area of family farms. According to the model calculations a liberalisation of agricultural markets would lead to the following consequences for farm enterprises and agricultural production: - A substantial reduction of cotton production will lead to a wider crop rotation and better soil fertility; - The total gross margins of the farm enterprises will increase due to an optimization of production and marketing structure; - If the fixed producer prices for wheat and cotton will be eliminated, wheat production would increase significantly; - Depending on the region animal stocks will show a different development pattern. While in one region the big farms will reduce their livestock production, in two other regions they will be increased. Family farms tend to reduce the livestock number due to scarcity of land resources; - Farm incomes can be increased by reducing the number of workers; simultaneously increasing wages and introducing better labour management practices thus contributing to higher motivation and business success; - Profits should be invested in new machinery and equipment in order to maintain adequate levels of production; - Private family farms show a relatively high labour capacity and would be able to increase their farm land. Therefore liberalization of land market is necessary; - For family farms a liberalization of producer prices will lead to similar changes in production and marketing structures as for big farm enterprises. In conclusion it can be recommended to state institutions to reduce their influence on the operational decisions of farmers. The main objective of agricultural policy in future should be improvement of frame conditions for trade, liberalization of markets, effective support to structural changes and creation of a system of social support to farmers.
The role of FDI in structural change : evidence from Mexico
(2018) Mühlen, Henning; Escobar, Octavio
Foreign direct investment (FDI)flows to Mexico are substantial and play an important role in the Mexican economy since the mid-1990s. These investments reflect the activities of multinational firms that shape to some extent the economic landscape and sectoral structure in this host country. We illustrate that there is considerable variation in the amounts of FDI and structural change within the country and across time. Based on this, the papers main purpose is to analyze whether there is a significant impact of FDI on structural change. We conduct an empirical analysis covering the period 2006-2016. We use the fixed-effects estimator where the unit of observation is a Mexican state for which we calculate structural change from the reallocation of labor between sectors. The results suggest that (if any) there is a positive effect from FDI on growth-enhancing structural change. This effect depends critically on the lag structure of FDI. Moreover, there is some evidence that the positive effect (i) arises from FDI flows in the industry sector and (ii) is present for medium- and low-skilled labor reallocation.
Wandel der Agrarstruktur - Wechselwirkungen ausgewählter über- und einzelbetrieblicher Entwicklungsstrategien im Agrar- und Agribusinesssektor
(2015) Laven, Pamela; Doluschitz, Reiner
This cumulative thesis examines inter-farm and single farm development strategies in agriculture and agribusiness, particularly against the background of demographic and structural change. It initially presents a summary of the demographic as well as structural developments in German agriculture. In doing so, it specifically addresses the small-scale region of Baden-Württemberg. The thesis examines selected inter-farm and single farm development strategies in the agricultural and agribusiness sector on the basis of different empirical studies conducted in the Baden-Württemberg region, and in one instance nationwide in Germany.
Wandel des Unternehmertums in der Landwirtschaft
(2016) Gindele, Nicola; Doluschitz, Reiner
The starting point for this cumulative thesis is the continuously advancing structural shift in agriculture and its upstream and downstream sectors. The first section of the thesis discusses the challenges faced by agriculture as a result of structural and demographic change. The thesis focuses on the shift in entrepreneurship in agriculture. It analyses to what extent there is a shift and the consequences that it has for the managers of agricultural businesses. Its impact on the availability of qualified agricultural workers is assessed in relation to the demographic change in the population. The studies reveal a strong dependence between business success and the ability of a farmer to act in an entrepreneurial manner, among other things caused by advancing structural change and increasingly liberalised agricultural markets. At the same time the farm managers remit is changing in line with economic growth and technical advances. Organisational and managerial tasks are growing in importance, while practical, hand-on tasks are relatively declining. The demands on farm managers increase as farms grow, greater technology is used and farms tend to specialise, and the requirements governing the qualification of permanently employed external workers also become stricter. It becomes clear that there are differences specific to particular regions and between individual farms when it comes to the professional qualifications of workers. In terms of the search for workers, there are particular problems today relating to the recruitment of specialist employees, while workers for simple auxiliary tasks are easier to find. Against the background of an emerging skills shortage, farm managers are called upon to analyse more closely their own management style and personnel management tools, such as non-material incentive systems, to offer their employees an attractive and pleasant long-term working environment. The second part of the thesis examines the challenges for rural cooperatives emanating from the structural change in agriculture. Cooperatives are the proven partners of agriculture, both in terms of the provision of equipment and the concentration and marketing of agricultural products, as well as the related improved market positioning of farmers. The thesis examines member management, in particular member retention, using the example of purchasing and sales cooperatives, as well as fruit and wine cooperatives, as there has been a sharp decrease in the number of members of the affected cooperatives in recent years. Strategies to improve the market position of rural cooperatives are also outlined. The rural cooperatives need to adopt an end-to-end well thought-out customer relationship management approach to counteract steadily falling numbers of members. Communication with members plays a key role in this. End-to-end and continuous communication with members improves the exchange of information and knowledge, encourages members to participate to a greater extent in the self-government of the cooperative and strengthens the overall emotional ties to cooperatives. Cooperation can be intensified, product quality improved and member retention positively influenced by means of contractual agreements, possibly in the form of cultivation and sales contracts between members and their cooperative. Against the background of growing farms and the related rising demands on the qualifications of farm managers, expanding the existing services offered provides another possible starting point for improving relationships with members. Expanding the services offered by the farm makes sense particularly in relation to advisory services in business administration, business management and production technology. To secure their market position, cooperatives can adapt to changing market conditions and gain a competitive edge by adopting a strategy of cost leadership, differentiation or niche marketing. The combined implementation of these strategies often happens in practice. Mergers represent another common strategy for improving market position. The history of mergers of fruit cooperatives in South Tyrol shows that the intensive involvement of members in the merger process is vital for its success. Structural change in German agriculture therefore not only has consequences for the farmer as an entrepreneur. Rural cooperatives also need to respond to changes in agricultural business structures by adopting adaptation strategies specifically matched to the particular cooperative. The size of the company is not decisive when it comes tor the success of managing a cooperative or a farm. The success of the business depends much more on the individual farm manager or director, who needs to be able to recognise new potential and business opportunities in a dynamically changing environment and implement innovations to ideally position the business within the competitive market.