IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea99/21502.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Flexibility In Agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Weiss, Christoph R.

Abstract

This paper considers the determinants of two dimensions of flexibility, the flexibility in adjusting aggregate output over time ("tactical flexibility") as well as the ability to switch quickly between products ("operational flexibility"). Econometric analysis of a sample of 40,000 farms in Upper-Austria for the period 1980 to 1990 suggests that larger full-time farms operated by younger, better educated farm operators are more flexible, ceteris paribus. The results further indicate a significant and negative interrelationship between tactical and operational flexibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Weiss, Christoph R., 1999. "Flexibility In Agriculture," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21502, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea99:21502
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.21502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/21502/files/sp99we01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.21502?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mills, David E & Schumann, Laurence, 1985. "Industry Structure with Fluctuating Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 758-767, September.
    2. Elhorst, J Paul, 1993. "The Estimation of Investment Equations at the Farm Level," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 20(2), pages 167-182.
    3. Huffman, Wallace E, 1980. "Farm and Off-Farm Work Decisions: The Role of Human Capital," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(1), pages 14-23, February.
    4. Lilien, David M, 1982. "Sectoral Shifts and Cyclical Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(4), pages 777-793, August.
    5. von Ungern-Sternberg, Thomas, 1990. "The Flexibility to Switch between Different Products," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 57(227), pages 355-369, August.
    6. Christoph R. Weiss, 1999. "Farm Growth and Survival: Econometric Evidence for Individual Farms in Upper Austria," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(1), pages 103-116.
    7. Ciaran Driver & Chit-Wei Saw, 1996. "Performance of structural change indices: analysis using real and simulated data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 187-188.
    8. J. Fernandez-Cornejo & C. M. Gempesaw II & J. G. Elterich & S. E. Stefanou, 1992. "Dynamic Measures of Scope and Scale Economies: An Application to German Agriculture," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(2), pages 329-342.
    9. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    10. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1982. "Selection and the Evolution of Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 649-670, May.
    11. George Stigler, 1939. "Production and Distribution in the Short Run," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(3), pages 305-305.
    12. Daniel A. Sumner & James D. Leiby, 1987. "An Econometric Analysis of the Effects of Human Capital on Size and Growth among Dairy Farms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(2), pages 465-470.
    13. Levy, David T. & Haber, Lawrence J., 1986. "An advantage of the multiproduct firm : The transferability of firm-specific capital," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 291-302, September.
    14. Weiss, Christoph R, 1997. "Do They Come Back Again? The Symmetry and Reversibility of Off-Farm Employment," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 24(1), pages 65-84.
    15. Mills, David E. & Smith, William, 1996. "It pays to be different: Endogenous heterogeneity of firms in an oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 317-329, May.
    16. Marvin T. Batte & Eugene Jones & Gary D. Schnitkey, 1990. "Computer Use by Ohio Commercial Farmers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(4), pages 935-945.
    17. Das, Bhaskar J & Chappell, William F & Shughart, William F, II, 1993. "Demand Fluctuations and Firm Heterogeneity," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 51-60, March.
    18. Carlsson, Bo, 1989. "Flexibility and the theory of the firm," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 179-203, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weiss, Christoph R., 2001. "On flexibility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 347-356, November.
      • Weiss, Christoph R. & Briglauer, Wolfgang, 2000. "On flexibility," FE Working Papers 0003, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Food Economics and Consumption Studies.
    2. Swetlana Renner & Thomas Glauben & Heinrich Hockmann, 2014. "Measurement and decomposition of flexibility of multi-output firms," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 41(5), pages 745-773.
    3. Dhawan, Rajeev, 2001. "Firm size and productivity differential: theory and evidence from a panel of US firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 269-293, March.
    4. Guven Sak & Erol Taymaz, 2004. "How Flexible are Small Firms? An Analysis on the Determinants of Flexibility," Working Papers 0416, Economic Research Forum, revised Aug 2004.
    5. Bernadette Power & Gavin C Reid, 2003. "Turbulence, Flexibility and Performance of the Long-lived Small Firm," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-039/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Antoci, A. & Sacco, P.L. & Scarpa, C., 2005. "Flexibility choices and oligopolistic competition in an evolutionary environment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1643-1671, October.
    7. Zimmermann, Klaus F., 1995. "Flexibility in the face of demand fluctuations: Employment, capacity utilization, and industry structure," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 179-193.
    8. Yuval Dolev & Ayal Kimhi, 2010. "Do family farms really converge to a uniform size? The role of unobserved farm efficiency ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(1), pages 119-136, January.
    9. Lajos Zoltán Bakucs & Imre Fertő, 2009. "The growth of family farms in Hungary," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(s1), pages 789-795, November.
    10. Takii, Katsuya, 2007. "The value of adaptability--Through the analysis of a firm's prediction ability," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 144-162.
    11. Elias Giannakis & Sophia Efstratoglou & Artemis Antoniades, 2018. "Off-Farm Employment and Economic Crisis: Evidence from Cyprus," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-11, March.
    12. Harris, James Michael & Blank, Steven C. & Erickson, Kenneth W. & Hallahan, Charles B., 2010. "Off-farm Income and Investments in Farm Assets: A Double Hurdle Approach," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61531, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Heath Henderson & Leonardo Corral & Eric Simning & Paul Winters, 2015. "Land Accumulation Dynamics in Developing Country Agriculture," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(6), pages 743-761, June.
    14. Brenes Muñoz, Thelma & Lakner, Sebastian & Brümmer, Bernhard, 2012. "Economic growth of farms: An empirical analysis on organic farming," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126756, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Roberts, Michael J. & Key, Nigel D., 2006. "Government Payments and Farmland Concentration," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21097, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. Ana Faria & Paul Fenn & Alistair Bruce, 2005. "Production technologies and technical efficiency: evidence from Portuguese manufacturing industry," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(9), pages 1037-1046.
    17. Mills, David E. & Smith, William, 1996. "It pays to be different: Endogenous heterogeneity of firms in an oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 317-329, May.
    18. Nuria Villalba Villalba, 2006. "Cost Flexibility and Firm Size: An Application to Spanish Manufacturing," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 429-446.
    19. Dolev, Yuval & Kimhi, Ayal, 2006. "Survival And Growth Of Family Farms In Israel: 1971-1995," Discussion Papers 7146, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    20. repec:zbw:iamost:199947 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Backman, Mikaela & Gabe, Todd & Mellander, Charlotta, 2016. "Effects of Human Capital on the Growth and Survival of Swedish Businesses," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 46(1).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Farm Management; Industrial Organization;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea99:21502. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.