IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/qjiage/155554.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Semi-Subsistence Farming, Farm Income and Social Capital in Bulgaria – Is there a Link?

Author

Listed:
  • Wolz, Axel
  • Fritzsch, Jana
  • Shterev, Nikolai
  • Buchenrieder, Gertrud
  • Paloma, Sergio Gomez y

Abstract

Social capital matters in determining a person’s or a family’s material well-being. It is argued that social capital functions similar to the traditional production factors. However, there are not many empirical analyses looking into this hypothesis at the farm-household level in general and in post-communist countries in particular. Whether or not social capital affects farm income is tested in this paper in two ways using micro-data from 185 Bulgarian semi-subsistence farm households (SFHs). First, it is tested whether social capital has an impact on agricultural income. Whether social capital promotes more efficient farming is evaluated in a second step. The findings confirm the hypothesis that social capital not only increases agricultural income, but also the efficiency of agricultural production among SFHs in Bulgaria. However, different specifications of social capital may impact income and efficiency in a diverse way. While good relations to corporate farms are significant in getting higher agricultural incomes, good relations to large-scale private farmers significantly impact efficient managerial capability of SFHs. It is suggested that good links to the second group are vital for those SFHs, which aim at becoming viable farmers in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolz, Axel & Fritzsch, Jana & Shterev, Nikolai & Buchenrieder, Gertrud & Paloma, Sergio Gomez y, 2010. "Semi-Subsistence Farming, Farm Income and Social Capital in Bulgaria – Is there a Link?," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 49(4), pages 1-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:qjiage:155554
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.155554
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/155554/files/1_Wolz.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.155554?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. Marcel Fafchamps, 2006. "Development and social capital," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1180-1198.
    2. Fabio Sabatini, 2008. "Social Capital and the Quality of Economic Development," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 466-499, August.
    3. Durlauf, Steven N. & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2005. "Social Capital," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1639-1699, Elsevier.
    4. Philip Kostov & John Lingard, 2004. "Subsistence Agriculture in Transition Economies: Its Roles and Determinants," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 565-579, November.
    5. Buchenrieder, Gertrud & Hanf, Jon H. & Pieniadz, Agata, 2009. "20 years of transition in the agri-food sector," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 58(7), pages 285-293.
    6. Fidrmuc, Jan & Gërxhani, Klarita, 2008. "Mind the gap! Social capital, East and West," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 264-286, June.
    7. Charles F. Manski, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Social Interactions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 115-136, Summer.
    8. Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    9. Scott Rozelle & Johan F.M. Swinnen, 2004. "Success and Failure of Reform: Insights from the Transition of Agriculture," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 404-456, June.
    10. Dirk J. Bezemer, 2002. "Credit Markets for Agriculture in the Czech Republic," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(8), pages 1301-1317.
    11. Stephan J. Goetz & Anil Rupasingha, 2006. "Wal-Mart and Social Capital," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1304-1310.
    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. Forte, Anabel & Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2015. "Does social capital matter for European regional growth?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 47-64.
    2. Colombo, Emilio & Stanca, Luca, 2014. "Measuring the monetary value of social relations: A hedonic approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 77-87.
    3. Jan Falkowski & Pavel Ciaian, 2016. "Factors Supporting the Development of Producer Organizations and their Impacts in the Light of Ongoing Changes in Food Supply Chains: A Literature Review," JRC Research Reports JRC101617, Joint Research Centre.
    4. Anchorena, José & Anjos, Fernando, 2015. "Social ties and economic development," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 63-84.
    5. Antoci Angelo & Sabatini Fabio & Sodini Mauro, 2009. "Will growth and technology destroy social interaction? The inverted U-shape hypothesis," wp.comunite 0057, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    6. Kunze, Lars & Suppa, Nicolai, 2017. "Bowling alone or bowling at all? The effect of unemployment on social participation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 213-235.
    7. Damiano Fiorillo & Nunzia Nappo, 2014. "Job satisfaction in Italy: individual characteristics and social relations," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(8), pages 683-704, August.
    8. Godoy, Ricardo A. & Reyes-García, Victoria & McDade, Thomas & Huanca, Tomás & Leonard, William R. & Tanner, Susan & Vadez, Vincent, 2006. "Does village inequality in modern income harm the psyche? Anger, fear, sadness, and alcohol consumption in a pre-industrial society," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 359-372, July.
    9. Angelo Antoci & Fabio Sabatini & Mauro Sodini, 2009. "The fragility of social capital," Department of Economics University of Siena 551, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    10. Wolz, A. & Fritzsch, J. & Pencáková, J., 2007. "Structural Social Capital and Economic Performance: Findings of Empirical Farm Data in the Czech Republic," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 42, March.
    11. Sabatini, Fabio, 2014. "The relationship between happiness and health: Evidence from Italy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 178-187.
    12. Lindner, Ines & Strulik, Holger, 2014. "From tradition to modernity: Economic growth in a small world," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 17-29.
    13. Lei, Xiaoyan & Shen, Yan & Smith, James P. & Zhou, Guangsu, 2015. "Do social networks improve Chinese adults’ subjective well-being?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 57-67.
    14. Kibrom A. Abay & Goytom A. Kahsay & Guush Berhane, 2018. "Social Networks and Factor Markets: Panel Data Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(1), pages 174-190, January.
    15. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Dinh, Hinh T., 2015. "Social capital, product imitation and growth with learning externalities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 41-54.
    16. Wolz, Axel & Fritzsch, Jana & Pencakova, Jitka, 2006. "Social Capital Among Agricultural Producers In The Czech Republic: Its Impact On Economic Performance," IAMO Discussion Papers 91965, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    17. Boenisch, Peter & Schneider, Lutz, 2013. "The social capital legacy of communism-results from the Berlin Wall experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 391-411.
    18. Takayama, Taisuke & Nakatani, Tomoaki, 2015. "The Impact of Participatory Projects on Social Capital: Evidence from Farmland Consolidation Projects in Japan," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211938, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Hernández, José & Guerrero-Luchtenberg, César, 2016. "Social capital, perceptions and economic performance," MPRA Paper 71006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Daichi Shimamoto & Yasuyuki Todo, 2015. "Economic and Political Networks and Firm Openness: Evidence from Indonesia," Working Papers 1512, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.

    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:qjiage:155554. 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/iahubde.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.