Как Да Оценим Управленческата Ефективност На Българските Земеделски Стопанства[How to assess the governance efficiency of Bulgarian agricultural farms]

There have been continuous academic, business, and policies debates about the efficiency of farms and agrarian organizations. A new insight into that important area is studying the farm not only as a production but as a governance structure as well. Most of the existing assessments of farms governance efficiency are at a conceptual or qualitative level due to well-known “measurement” problems related to transacting costs. This article incorporates the New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics framework and suggests a practical approach for assessing the level and factors of governance efficiency of farms. Initially, the methodology framework of the study is presented including an adequate understanding of farm efficiency and an approach for the correct assessment of its levels. The farm is considered efficient if it governs all its transactions and activity in the most economical (equally or more efficient) way compared to other feasible organization(s) - another farm(s), organization(s), public, hybrid, etc. modes, and vice versa. In addition, the farm adaptation potential to changing market, institutional, technological, and natural environment are to be good in order to have high governance (and overall) efficiency. The aim of the study is to experiment with this approach and assess the level of governance efficiency on Bulgarian farms as a whole and of different types and locations. The evaluation of governance efficiency of the Bulgarian farms is made on the basis of original micro-data collected by the managers of typical farms. The "Nature of the problems in effective organization for major class farm transactions for securing needed factors of production and marketing of output" is used as an indicator for the comparative efficiency (equal and greater compared to another farm/s or organisation/s) of individual farms. The study has found that the governance efficiency of farms is at a Good level but 60% of all farms in the county are with a Low efficiency and will likely cease to exist in near future. Major factors for inferior governance efficiency of Bulgarian farms are unsatisfactory efficiency in Supply of Necessary Labour, Innovations and Know-how, and Funding. There is a huge variation in the level and factors of governance efficiency of farms with different juridical types, sizes, product specializations, and geographical and ecological locations as well as in the share of farms with different levels of efficiency in each group. Also, there is a big discrepancy between the new assessments with dominating traditional approaches based on factors productivity. The suggested approach has to be further improved, and widely and periodically applied in economic analysis at various levels which require the systemic collection of a novel type of micro-data on farms governance and transaction costs.