Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Peter BIELIK Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Daniela HUPKOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Title: Modelling structural changes in the poultry meat demand - the case of Slovakia Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the households' poultry meat consumption using the main economic factors. The price, income and cross-price elasticities of the poultry meat demand were estimated. The impact of the BSE disease occurrence and the accession of Slovakia into the EU are incorporated into the modelling. The Household Budget Survey of the Slovak Statistical Office was used for the period 1993-2009; the general fixed effects panel data model was applied. With respect to the modelling results, the significant variables that the affect poultry meat consumption are the pork meat price, the poultry meat price, the trend and occurrence of the BSE disease. The poultry meat demand is inelastic with respect to its price. During the analysed period, the poultry meat demand increased by 8.05% yearly. Pork meat and poultry meat are the substitutes in consumption. Keywords: meat consumption, poultry meat, price elasticity, income elasticity, individual households' categories, fixed effect Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 363-369 Volume: 57 Issue: 8 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/105/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/105/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201108-0001.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:8:id:105-2011-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Ján POKRIVČÁK Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Pavel CIAIAN Author-Workplace-Name: IPTS-JRC European Commission, Seville, Spain Author-Name: d'Artis KANCS Author-Workplace-Name: IPTS-JRC European Commission, Seville, Spain Title: Modelling the factor content of agricultural trade Abstract: This article examines the factor content of agricultural trade in the Central and East European (CEE) transition countries. It relates the factor content of agricultural trade to the cross-country differences in technology stemming from different farm organisations between the CEE countries agricultural sectors and to the differences in relative factor endowments. The relative factor endowments alone do not satisfactorily explain agricultural trade flows in the CEE countries. We find that transaction costs and market imperfections that affect the organisation of production also distort farm specialisation and hence V the actor content of agricultural trade. Keywords: factor content, agricultural trade, comparative advantages, transaction cost Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 370-383 Volume: 57 Issue: 8 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/116/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/116/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201108-0002.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:8:id:116-2010-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Artan QINETI Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Eva MATEJKOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Statistics and Operation Research, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Miriam PIETRIKOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Statistics and Operation Research, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Roman SERENČEŠ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Marián Tóth Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Finance, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Marek DVOŘAK Author-Workplace-Name: Academy of Public Administration, Prague, Czech Republic Title: Looking for the evidence of socio-economic convergence within the European Union Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evidence and impact of the EU integration between 1999 and 2009 on the EU regional economic growth and the socio-economic convergence. A regional convergence analysis is performed in order to examine if the EU overall aim of convergence is reached. The main growth- and convergence theories are used as the theoretical framework and form the study's hypothesis. The results show that an absolute β-convergence exists between the EU member states as well as regions. However, the σ-convergence is not confirmed, meaning that that the disparities between the regions are rather increasing than decreasing. Perhaps a possible reason why the σ-convergence does not occur at the EU level is that it is easier for smaller regions which are more similar to each other to converge than for larger regions which tend to be more dissimilar to each other. This reasoning is in line with the convergence theories which state that smaller regions within a country are more likely to converge towards each other in the absolute sense than countries. On the other hand, the EU countries and regions tend to convergence in the tasks like unemployment rate, showing that they are not successful in resolving this difficult task. One of the main reasons of the high unemployment in all EU member states is their structural problem in the respective economies, consequently reflected in the long-term unemployment. The EU countries tend to convergence in terms of inequality as well, showing that they are egalitarian in character. Keywords: convergence, European Union 27, GDP capita, unemployment, inequality, CEEC Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 384-393 Volume: 57 Issue: 8 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/93/2011-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/93/2011-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201108-0003.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:8:id:93-2011-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Jan POKRIVČÁK Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Nitra, Slovak Republik Author-Name: Miroslava RAJČANIOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Nitra, Slovak Republik Title: Crude oil price variability and its impact on ethanol prices Abstract: The world annual biofuel production has exceeded 100 billion litres in 2009. The development of the biofuel production is partly influenced by the government support programs and partly by the development of oil prices. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the statistical relationship between ethanol, gasoline and crude oil prices. We aim to check the correlation among these variables and to analyze the strength and direction of a possible linear relationship among the variables. We are interested in analyzing how each variable is related to another, so we evaluate the inter-relationship among the variables in the Vector Autoregression (VAR) and the Impulse Response Function (IRF). In order to achieve our goal, we first collected weekly data for each variable from January, 2000 to October, 2009. The results provide evidence of the cointegration relationship between oil and gasoline prices, but no cointegration between ethanol, gasoline and ethanol, oil prices. As a result, we used a VAR model on first differences. After running the Impulse Response Function, we found out that the impact of the oil price shock on the other variables is considerable larger than vice versa. The largest impact of oil price shock was observed on the price of gasoline. Keywords: biofuels, crude oil, gasoline, ethanol, cointegration Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 394-403 Volume: 57 Issue: 8 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/42/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/42/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201108-0004.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:8:id:42-2010-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Ľubica KUBICOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Nitra, Slovak Republic Author-Name: Zdenka KÁDEKOVÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Nitra, Slovak Republic Title: Comparison of the income development and the food demand elasticities of the private households in Slovakia Abstract: The paper deals with assessing the development of monetary incomes and expenditures of the Slovak households for food using the classification of households by income quartiles and by consumer spending. The analysis confirms the significant differences and unbalanced income distribution. Households in the fourth income quartile dispose of 2.8 times higher incomes than the families in the first quartile. There have been analyzed the food groups that in terms of expenditures represent the part in the food basket higher than 6%. The results confirm that income differentiation of households is also reflected in their different behavior in the food market. The demand changes most sensitive to income changes are those of the households with the lowest incomes. Demand for vegetables, potatoes and tuberous plants shows the highest value of the income elasticity, and in the households with the lowest incomes, the demand for potatoes and vegetables is elastic (EI = 1.165). Keywords: incomes and expenditures of the households by income quartiles, elasticity of demand for bakery and dairy products, meat and meat products, vegetables and fruits Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 404-411 Volume: 57 Issue: 8 Year: 2011 DOI: 10.17221/36/2010-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/36/2010-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201108-0005.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:57:y:2011:i:8:id:36-2010-AGRICECON