Contract enforcement in Hungarian agri-food chain: the case of small and medium enterprises

The paper analyses small and medium firms’ perceptions on contract enforcement along food chain in central region of Hungary using survey data. We find that 59 per cent of respondents believe that they could use court to enforce contracts with their partner. However we do not find significant differences along food chain. Our estimations suggest that contractual specificity and firm attributes, external linkages, efficiency of legal systems factors, buyer and seller specific factors significantly influence the opinion on contract enforcement. Interestingly, the impact of branch specific characteristics has no impacts. Acceptance of financial loss can be explained by contractual specificity, external linkages, and efficiency of legal systems. Buyer, seller and industry characteristics has not played role in the explanation of financial losses.