Effect of family labour on output of farms in selected EU Member States: a non-parametric quantile regression approach

Abstract

There is very little empirical evidence supporting the claims that family farming is a 'superior' form of organisation for agricultural production. This paper investigates the comparative output effects of family labour in several EU Member States. No positive output effects can be discerned when farms are characterised by a low level of technical efficiency. In the case of efficient farms, the incremental effects of family labour are characterised by a number of thresholds. The paper only finds limited support for the claimed positive output effects of family farming and these only materialise after a considerable family involvement is committed.

Comparative Efficiency of Family and Corporate Farms: Does Family Labour Matter?

“…In summary, Figure 1 shows that the F-efficiency density differential is upward sloping (although only becoming positive for the Czech Republic) as efficiency increases. This confirms the results of Kostov et al (2016) that family farming efficiency gains appear to be realised only above an efficiency threshold, i.e. only for the most efficient farms.…”

“…Based on Kostov et al . (), we would expect such results to gradually appear with a move from less to more involved family farms.…”

“…This confirms the results of Kostov et al . () that family farming efficiency gains appear to be realised only above an efficiency threshold, i.e. only for the most efficient farms.…”

“…Additionally, the spatial dispersion of work makes the monitoring costs in agriculture particularly large. This implies that the average productivity of labour on family farms may be higher than for hired workers on corporate farms (Pollak, 1985;Valentinov, 2007;Kostov et al, 2016).…”

“…This might lead to a situation in which more family-oriented farms lose relative efficiency in comparison to the corporate farms. Kostov et al (2016) refer to the latter as the 'management capabilities deterioration effect'. Due to the existence of the two opposing effectsthe positive effect of more efficient monitoring and negative aspects of family farms discussed aboveit cannot be said a priori that family farming is a more efficient form of organisation.…”