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The financial structure of enterprises is constantly a subject of research of many academics. Despite the fact that many scientific studies deal with this area of financial management, the research is mostly focused on industrial companies. In our opinion, there is a wide scope for research into the segment of agricultural enterprises and their financial structure, as well. The aim of the paper is, therefore, to analyse the direction and intensity of action of the selected internal corporate factors and external factors of the macro-environment on the financial structure of Czech and Slovak agricultural enterprises and to identify differences in the action of these factors between the Czech and Slovak companies. The methods of multiple regression and correlation analysis have been used as the main research methods. The achieved results pointed at the fact that in addition to the internal corporate factors, the external factors of the macro-environment were also statistically highly significant for certain groups of agricultural enterprises. The paper also points to some diff erences in the direction and intensity of action of the chosen factors on the examined level of debt -- the total indebtedness and the credit indebtedness of the studied agricultural enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th e main objective of the paper is to identify the impact of the Russian agrarian import ban on imports of certain agricultural products from Europe, Norway, Canada, the USA and Australia. Th e import ban particularly aff ected the import of competitive agricultural and foodstuff commodities into Russia. Th e ban was the result of the political and security tensions existing between the Russian Federation and the Western World, since early 2014. If we take into consideration the volume of the mutual trade and the importance of the mutual trade for each of the stakeholders mentioned above, it can be assumed that the main objectives of the Russian embargo was not to hurt the individual countries - especially the European Union, but rather to support domestic producers in order to achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency in basic agricultural products. It is evident that the objective of the applied import ban is to reduce the dependence of the Russian Federation on imports. Th is paper provides an analysis of the most aff ected product groups and products, especially in relation to the EU countries. Th e paper provides the following fi ndings: Th e result of the applied import ban was a significant reduction of the Russian agrarian import value. Th e import ban also improved the overall competitiveness of the Russian agricultural trade, whilst on the other hand, the competitiveness of some commodity groups was reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the disparity in the performance of the agriculture and food industry sectors in EU countries during the period from 2002 to 2013, and identifies significant differences between countries as well as the dynamics of change. The individual countries are clustered according to the long-term average of the World Bank collection of development indicators such as agricultural raw materials exports, agricultural raw materials imports, crop production index, food production index, livestock production index, cereal yield, agriculture value added and agriculture value added per worker. The analysis reveals convergence in the given period and identifies significant differences in the indicator of agriculture value added per worker at the end of the analysed period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural R&D has been identified as an important determinant of economic output in the agricultural sector. Surprisingly, in previous studies, spatial spillover associated with R&D spending in the agricultural sector has not been taken into account. This paper investigates the effects of spatial spillover of agricultural R&D on regional economic growth across EU-28 NUTS-II regions in the period 1995-2014. In particular, we extend previous studies by considering spillover in all sectors of agricultural R&D performance including business enterprise, government and higher education. The spatial Durbin panel data model is employed to estimate brooders effect including direct and indirect effects. Empirical results show a positive effect of agricultural R&D and its spatial spillover on regional growth in all performance sectors. Moreover, the impact of spatial spillover of agricultural R&D on regional growth depends on the performance of the R&D sectors; positive spillovers are stronger in the business enterprise sector. Finally, the interaction effect between the economic output of the agricultural sector of each region with that of its neighbours is significantly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nutritional values of different foodstuffs have been examined in various studies on a number of occasions. However, so far, little attention has been paid to the legal aspects of introducing edible insects in the European Union. Yet, the rearing of this mini-livestock for food and feed has a potential of developing into a new agricultural sector, which is sustainable, unlike the breeding of the traditional livestock. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the legal background of authorizing edible insects in the European Union, taking into account the environmental impacts thereof. At present, the Member States are free to regulate this field, however, only until the transitional period established by the European Union (EU) rules has expired, since the EU wide regulation for authorizing edible insects is to be introduced as of 1st January 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of what effectt the subsidies have on the productivity of farms in the EU has been studied by many authors, but has not yet been answered. A further research is thus required both in relation to the period since the decoupling reform, and in relation to the new member countries in the EU 28. In the paper, it is suggested that the productivity of resources in agriculture is not affected by the total amounts of subsidies, but by their structure. A three-stage spatial analysis was made of an EUFADN representative sample in the years 2007-2012: in the firts stage, clusters of regions with significantly different agricultural support models were identified; in the second, it was determined whether the structure of the political rent, reflecting the different support models in the EU 28, is a significant determinant of the productivity of capital, land and labour on farms when subsidies are excluded and when they are included in the analysis. In the third stage, a robust model has been estimated (employing GLS) to relate the factors productivity to the EUFADN subsidies and to the location variables identified by the cluster analysis. The analysis confirmed that the qualitative predictor, i.e. "a structure of agricultural support", was a significant factor influencing the capital productivity over the whole of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th e paper assesses the competitiveness of agriculture of 27 countries of the European Union in the years 2009- 2011. Due to the complexity of the phenomenon of competitiveness, a wide range of variables was adopted to evaluate it - including the relationship between the production factors, productivity, and the importance of agriculture in the international trade. Based on the evaluation criteria chosen for the competitiveness assessment and using the TOPSIS method, a synthetic measure of the studied phenomenon was constructed and then divided into four groups of countries similar in terms of the level of competitiveness of agriculture. Th e diff erence between the value of the synthetic measure of the country with the highest level of competitiveness of agriculture (Netherlands) and the country least competitive in this regard (Slovenia) was 3.5-fold. In addition to the Netherlands, there were classified also France, Germany, Denmark and Belgium in the fi rst group, so the countries with high levels of the socio-economic development. In the second group, there were seven countries: Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Cyprus, Austria, Ireland and Luxembourg. Th erefore, the fi rst two groups are formed by the countries belonging to the so-called "Old 15" (except Cyprus). Th e last two groups are formed primarily by the countries that joined the European Union in 2004 or later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relative technical efficiency of the agricultural sector in the European Union (EU) using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) during the period 2007-2011. The authors investigated efficiency using both the input and output-oriented models with the assumption of a variable return to scale. They looked for causes of inefficiency and made recommendations for inefficient agricultural sectors. The results show that, in average, the EU agricultural sectors performed efficiently, as evidenced by the relatively high value of the average input and output efficiency. The efficiency of the EU agricultural sectors had changed over the past few years, and in both models the efficiency has generally decreased over time. As the main source of inefficiency was labelled the input "total utilised agricultural area" and as the strength with a positive impact on efficiency, there was labelled the "crop output." By calculating the optimal values for the input and output variables for inefficient agricultural sectors, it has been found that for the efficient production of a given quantity of outputs, it was necessary to reduce the value of the in put "total labour" in average by 6.18%, the "total utilised agricultural area" in average by 14.45% and the "total assets" in average by 5.93%. In case of the output-oriented model for efficient use of a given quantity of inputs, the agricultural sectors should produce up to 111.85% of their crop output and 113.41% of their animal output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]