Foreword
The present e-book series edited and managed by professor Rezitis, offers new challenges and opportunities to economists and agricultural economists since it delivers advance empirical work to a broader audience of both economists and agricultural economists. In this book, a perfect job of connecting pure economic methods to current agricultural applications has been achieved. Thus, this forum will constitute the main background for further development of such kind of agricultural research.
In this particular volume, high quality of empirical studies covering areas like price transmission-agricultural policies-convergence-investments-cooperatives-gas markets can be found. Moreover, authors that joined this volume have a great deal of work on the area they contribute and they can be contacted for any further published literature.
Konstadinos Mattas
Professor of Agricultural Policy
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Editor of the “Agricultural Economics Review”
Preface
The aim of the e-book series of Research Topics in Agricultural & Applied Economics (RTAAE)
is to publish high quality economic research applied to both the agricultural and non-agricultural
sectors of the economy. The subject areas of this e-book series include, among others, supply and
demand analysis, technical change and productivity, industrial organization, labor economics,
growth and development, environmental economics, marketing, business economics and finance.
By covering a broad variety of economic research topics, this e-book series is addressed to a wide
spectrum of academic agricultural and applied economic researchers and scientists but it could
also prove useful to industry specialists and government policymakers.
The present volume of RTAAE (Vol. 1) contains the following 11 chapters:
Chapter 1, entitled “Price Transmission and Markov Switching Regime Shifts: An Application to the
Greek Lamb Market”, examines the long-run price relationships and regime shifts that govern the price
transmission mechanism between the farm, wholesale, imported and retail levels of the lamb market.
Chapter 2, entitled “Evaluating Economic Incentives for Greek Organic Agriculture: A Real
Option Approach”, applies option-pricing theory to evaluate investment decisions by farmers
regarding their potential conversion to organic agriculture.
Chapter 3, entitled “Ex Post Evaluation of Mathematical Programming Models in Predicting
Arable Farming Reactions in the Decoupling Era”, presents an ex post validation of the standard
linear programming, non-linear programming and two alternative positive mathematical
programming model specifications by comparing the performance with observed data of the new
CAP implementation in Greece.
Chapter 4, entitled “A Comparative Financial Assessment Analysis of Agricultural Producing
Cooperatives in the Krasnodar Region – Russia”, examines the organizational functions and
economic status of agricultural cooperatives in Russia, providing a perspective of the current
dynamics of the cooperatives with respect to recent changes in the Russian agricultural sector.
Chapter 5, entitled “The Evolution of Solutions to the Free Rider Problem in US Agricultural
Bargaining Cooperatives”, addresses the issue of how intra-organizational incentive alignment
mechanisms evolve to solve the free rider problem in collective bargaining and focuses on
agricultural bargaining cooperatives (ABCs), a particular form of producer-owned firms mainly
observed in the West Coast states of the US.
Chapter 6, entitled “Performance Measurement in the Greek Context: Evidence from Different
Corporate Settings”, investigates the impact of performance measurement systems adoption on
firm profitability by matching a group of manufacturing industries with peer firms that were not
manufacturing industries.
Chapter 7, entitled “Nutritional Label Users’ Ability to Perform Nutrition Tasks as a Dietary
Consumption Constraint”, uses a simultaneous equation model to investigate how the ability to
perform nutrition-related tasks, among nutrition label users, may affect diet quality.
Chapter 8, entitled “Spatial Approach to Territorial Convergence Across the EU-15 Regions and
the CAP”, examines the role of spatial dependence and heterogeneity on real agricultural and
economic convergence across a sample of 166 EU-15 regions.
Chapter 9, entitled “Human Capital Convergence in Greece: A Panel Data Analysis”, examines the
existence of human capital convergence between Greek regions.
Chapter 10, entitled “Economic Determinants of Inward Foreign Direct Investments to Transition
Countries: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania”, attempts to assess the main foreign direct
investment (FDI) determinants for Bulgaria and Romania, after their accession to the EU.
Chapter 11, entitled “Liberalisation of the European Natural Gas Market: Myth or Reality?
Evidence from Greece”, analyses the main aspects involved in the liberalization process of the EU
natural gas industry and the extent to which it has impacted on less liberalized countries such as
Greece.
Anthony N. Rezitis
&
Konstantinos S. Stavropoulos
University of Ioannina
Department of Business Administration of Food and Agricultural Enterprises
2, G Seferi St, Agrinio
Greece
List of Contributors
Editor(s):
Anthony N. Rezitis
University of Ioannina
Greece
Contributor(s):
Andreas C. Drichoutis
Department of Economics
University of Ioannina
P.O. Box 1186
Ioannina, 45110
Greece
Anthony N. Rezitis
Department of Business Administration of Food and Agricultural
Enterprises
University of Ioannina
P.O. Box 1186
Ioannina, 45110
Greece
Athanasios Petsakos
Department of Agricultural Economics
Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75
Athina, 118 55
Greece
Constantin Zopounidis
Financial Engineering Laboratory
Technical University of Crete
Chania, 731 00
Greece
Christos T. Papadas
Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development
Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75
Athina, 118 55
Greece
Dimitrios Kyrkilis
Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, School of Economic and Regional Studies
University of Macedonia
Egnatia 156
Thessaloniki, 540 06
Greece
Dimitrios P. Koumanako
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Patras
Panepistimioupoli
Patron, 265 04
Greece
Fotini Mentesidi
University of Ioannina
P.O. Box 1186
Ioannina, 45110
Greece
George Baourakis
Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania
Alsyllio Agrokipiou, 1 Makedonias, P.O. Box 85
Chania
Crete, 731 00
Greece
George L. Liaskos
Department of Agricultural Economics
Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75
Athina, 118 55
Greece
Irene Fafaliou
Department of Economics
University of Piraeus
Karaoli & Dimitriou 80
Piraeus, 185 34
Greece
Irene Tzouramani
Agricultural Economics and Policy Research Institute
National Agricultural Research Foundation
Athens
Greece
Konstadinos Mattas
Department of Agricultural Economics, School of Agriculture
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, 54124
Greece
Konstantinos S. Stavropoulos
Department of Business Administration of Food and Agricultural Enterprises
University of Ioannina
P.O. Box 1186
Ioannina, 45110
Greece
Maria Sassi
Department of Economics and Management
University of Pavia
corso str 27100, Corso Strada Nuova
Pavia
PV, 65, 27100
Italy
Michael L. Polemis
Department of Economics
Hellenic Competition Commission
1a Kotsika str., 104 34
Αthens
Greece
Nadezhda Pashkova
Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania
Alsyllio
Agrokipiou, 1 Makedonias, P.O. Box 85, Chania
P.O. Box 1186
Crete, 731 00
Greece
Panagiotis Lazaridis
Department of Agricultural Economics
Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75
Athina, 118 55
Greece
Pantelis Pantelidis
Department of Economics
University of Piraeus
Karaoli & Dimitriou 80
Piraeus, 185 34
Greece
Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr.
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness
University of Arkansas
Karaoli & Dimitriou 80
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Greece
Stelios Rozakis
Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development
Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75
Athina, 118 55
Greece