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Analysis of economic issues relating to the dairy sector, with emphasis on price transmission
61-70Views:150The dramatic decline in consumption after 1990 was an important problem during the analysis of the sector. Even today, consumption is still below the degree that was before the political change, and significantly lags behind the EU level.The importance of this topic is emphasized by the fact that surplus milk could be marketed through the increased domestic consumption; this would create a more stable and calculable situation for farmers. Therefore, I considered it important to reveal what factors and by what shares influence the consumption of milk and dairy products. The relationship, time series and cross-sectional analysis based on national and international databases demonstrate the relationship between the consumption of milk and dairy products and the other determining factors of consumption in Hungary and in the EU-25 through diagrams. I draw the conclusion that there is a medium correlation between the development of the economy, the higher income level and the consumption of milk and dairy products. Just before our EU accession, the dairy sector was one of the most critical industries of Hungarian agriculture, which is why I chose this for my analysis. I regard as a new scientific result the econometric analysis of the asymmetric market conditions in the price transmission approach within our dairy sector between 1995 and 2003. I confirmed and quantified that the market is under an oligopoly and defined the direction of price adjustment. Furthermore, I regard as a new result in the price transmission analysis (also published in the article published with Dr. József Tóth), that the three possible dimensions (elasticity, a symmetry relations,lag) are analysed simultaneously.Therefore,a more sophisticated picture is given on price transmission. The theoretical advantages and disadvantages are verified by an example of a vertical coordination based on the horizontal cooperation in the dairy sector (Alföldi Tej Ltd).
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Water footprint in Hungary
83-91Views:177More and more news report on water-related extreme environmental phenomena. Some of these are natural, which are often beyond the human race. But others are definitely due to anthropogenic effects. I think the water footprint index is able to highlight national and international water-use processes and gives us the opportunity of organizing a sustainable, consumer-, environmental- and governancefriendly management. 81% of the fresh water withdrawal is from surface water bodies in the EU. In Europe as a whole, 44% of abstraction is used for energy production, 24% for agriculture, 21% for public water supply and 11% for industry. Public water supply is confined to ground waters. To the water resources related human activity caused qualitative and quantitative amortisation will grow worse in the foreseeable future due to the climate change. Beside seasonal differences the sectoral differences are increasingly becoming critical between different areas, such as Southern and Western Europe. The former, wrong agricultural support system has worsened the situation since it gave financial aid for the used improper techniques of water-intensive crop cultivation. By today, this seems to be solved. Public water abstraction is affected by many factors, of which mostly are based on social situation and habits, but technological leakage receives a big role as well. Interesting, that for example the residents’water consumption in Eastern Europe decreased because price were raised and regular measurements were introduced. But in Southern Europe it increased due to tourism in the past period. Industrial water withdrawal decreased across Europe because of the decline of industry and the development of technologies. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), the Union needs a sustainable, demand-driven leadership which focuses on the preservation and use efficiency. This have already appeared in politics and legal administration as well. Current research calls the attention to the significance and difficulties of this kind of domestic estimation presented trough the water footprint calculation of bread and pork in Hungary. The received data indicate the domestic water consumption trends in a modern approach. There is no doubt for me about the urgent necessity of water footprint calculation because as a result innovative, sustainability supported environmental, social, economical, and political relationships can be created – not just on local, regional or national level, but on interregional, European and even global stage.
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Influence of social media on tourism – especially among students of the University of Debrecen
105-112Views:4150Derive from the characteristic, decisions connected with travelling have high risk for the travellers therefore they try to collect more detailed information and thoroughly map decision alternatives in order to decrease uncertainty. Wide spread of the Internet and rapid technological evolution have revolutionized all industries in the World especially tourism. Platform of tourism increasingly get to the Internet nowadays which is vitally important because tourism is an informationbased and information-intensive industry. Thanks to development of the internet tourists have an opportunity to access such information and purchasing opportunities which were available with the help of intermediaries earlier. Providing wide range of possibilities, Web 2.0 fundamentally changed the way of tourists’ information search behaviour and travelling decision making. This article collects some of the most significant new applications (social networking sites, blogs) in tourism – examine them from the two sides of tourism (demand, supply) – which principally based on active participation of users. Furthermore an offline questionnaire was made in order to survey the social media usage of the student (University of Debrecen, Centre for Agricultural and Applied Economic Sciences) during their leisure travel planning process. Although findings of the study reveal that vast majority of students use social networking sites every day, they don’t really use these platforms during their trip planning process. Among students, friends and relatives are the most important and the most trustworthy source of information due to characteristics of sample.
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The motivations for the diversification of the Nigerian economy focusing on sustainable agriculture
7-13Views:213Agriculture is one of the major branches of the economy in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa. It employs around 70% of the population and its contribution to the national GDP ranges around 45% (2012). In spite of the fact that most of the area is arable the majority of food, the Nigerian population consumes, comes from imports. The paper attempts to provide in insight to the reasons, why Nigeria could still not achievew self sufficiency from major food crops and livestock. Beyond the rapid growth of the population, one of the major reasons is the rich oil and natural gas reserves, the exploitation and export of which has been providing with the country with “easy cash” for the recent few decades. Another reason is that the agricultural holdings are small and scattered, and farming is carried out with simple tools and techniques. Modern and large-scale farms are not common. The political leadership and economic decision makers of the country already recognized the necessity of the development of the food and agricultural sector, which – contrary to the oil industry – would exercise a deep and positive impact on the rural society as well. Nigerian agriculture is being transformed towards commercialization at small, medium and large-scale enterprise levels.
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Examination of the organizational frameworks of sports enterprises in the light of good german practices
41-46Views:124In Hungary, with respect to the organizational issues associated with sports, there has occurred the demand for clarifying structural forms. The domestic development of sports raises the question in which fields the association-based sports model can be sustained, and operated further, and where organizational structures aligned with business models are viable. This article has described an example from German professional football, i.e. given an overview of the operation of Borussia Dortmund as a potential form for the enterprise and organizational solution. The strength of the demonstrated model is that the pursuance of business activities that cannot be or can be just hardly handled in the environment offered by associations is transferred to a setting dominated by economic conditions, whereas self-regulating civil values are not lost either, because the association remains the “parent company”.
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Liquid bio-fuels in Hungary: effects and contradictions
89-94Views:133The increase of living standard requires ever more energy, despite energy saving measures. Domestic growth was 100 PJ between 2000 and 2006, and 77% of the total utilization was importe (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, 2008).Sustainability was endangered not only in our energy and commerce policy. Our domestic natural conditions are suitable for plant production; however, the stagnation of the domestic population and decreasing livestock numbers restrict in land marketing. Therefore, significant surpluses from year to year had to be stored and sold abroad, and the fact that the interventional purchase of corn and the expected stringent new EU regulation of the sugar beet sector, make the strategic significance of these branches uncertain. The difficult marketing opportunities make the better utilization of our opportunities in producing liquid bio-fuels possible from marketing aspects, while environmental issues and realizing the EU directions enforce to do so in a longer term. Over the short term, agricultural and competitive aspects will determine its spread, which cause different effects in Europe in comparison with the developing countries. According to Nábrádi-Ficzeréné Nagymihály, 2008, one of the breaking points of Hungarian agriculture lies in the utilization of alternative energy sources. During the past period, many contradictory opinions came forward relating to economies, agricultural effects, food risks as well as the energetic and environmental efficiency of bio-fuels. One thing is certain: these fuels are already used today and their significance has been increasing. Although due to technological development, spread of new products and processes (cellulose-based bioethanol, bioethanol, biogas, hydrogen, biomethane) will obviously have to be expected in the future, at present biodiesel and bioethanol are determent among bio-fuels, thus I deal with these as well as their energetic and agricultural effects in my study.
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Structured commodity finance
77-83Views:183Over the past years, the financial stock market – providing the capital demand that is the result of stockpiling and the characteristic strong seasonality observed in the agricultural sector – has increasingly grown and become more “used” by market participants. Its size had reached an annual value of 200 billion HUF, of which agricultural products had received the largest proportion through the various market participants (producers, integrators, traders, feed producers, mills). In the meantime, this market had become part of the competition between the commercial banks that are the largest financers of the sector, due to which the financing credit institutions had undertaken increasing risk levels, with respect to both degree of financing and the VAT financing related to stockholding. The practice of commodity financing by banks display a rather varied picture at present. Considering the exceptional degree of fall in prices and the actions of companies totally disregarding business ethics in 2008, it seems necessary to reveal the full scope of risks inherent in commodity financing. The primary aim of such an exercise is to ensure the prudent operation of refinancing activities for commercial banks. The inherent risks in trade financing – as has been proven by the experiences of previous years – are not found primarily in the goods themselves, but rather at the actual storage facility and also emerge in relation to clients, as well as the inadequate and ineffective risk management of price volatility by the financers. Therefore, the establishment of banking risk management and risk prevention techniques, including the development of new financing procedures become indispensable, minimizing all types of risks that had emerged in previous years.
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Development of leisure and sports consumption and sports motivation among children with disabilities
Views:231The number of studies on the leisure and sporting habits of people with disabilities as well as the background of sports motivation is far from the focus of research on intact research. Thus, the assessment of physical habits and sports motivation factors determining the quality of life of persons with disabilities can be considered as a less researched deficit area in Hungary and internationally.
In our research, we examine the recreational and sporting habits of the 8-18 year-olds, as well as the motivational background, and the results of this research are presented in this paper. The importance of this issue is confirmed by the fact that, according to a UN survey, 650 million people have some kind of disability, 50 million of them in Europe and nearly half a million in Hungary, 5% of the population. The questionnaire (N = 639) was filled by children with disabilities living in the North Great Plain region with the help of a teacher. We used both closed and open questions in the questionnaire, and we helped and orient children with response categories for some questions.
Data were processed using SPSS software, averaged, standard deviation, median, mode, and Chi2 probe was used to examine relationships in addition to basic statistics.
Our results showed that it is a problem for young people with disabilities that they prefer passive leisure activities, which is similar to the results of studies on intact research. Boys and girls have different sports, boys are more active than girls.
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Analysis of the producer price of Hungarian raw milk in international comparison
27-32Views:163Although the dairy market crisis eased in 2011, Hungarian dairy farmers still find it difficult to produce milk profitably. As a result of the crisis, many dairy farmers abandoned milk production or reduced the size of their dairy herds in 2009 and 2010. Today, many of farmers are also considering ceasing production, in spite of the fact that the global dairy industry is facing an upturn. A dairy farm can operate profitablyy in three ways: 1) if it can reach a relatively high level of producer price 2) if it can increase milk production per cow 3) if it can achieve a relatively low cost of production. In the present study, I primarily analyse the development of the Hungarian producer price of raw milk in international comparison. Next, I list those factors which directly or indirectly influence the producer price of raw milk. Finally, I examine the relationship among disposable income, milk consumption and milk price. Since the start of 2009, the dairy market has been confronted with a period of extraordinary law prices. After bottoming out, prices had begun to slowly stabilise during the second half of 2009. By the end of that summer, international prices had started to strengthen and the last quarter of 2009 was characterized by a steady rise in prices. The strong recovery in prices experienced after 2009 was triggered by increased demand, mainly from oil exporting countries, but also from China.
The price increase, however, reflected a significant increase in input costs in Hungary; the high level of feed prices and the unfavourable change in the macroeconomic environment must be stressed. The rising excise duty on diesel fuel and the VAT increase had a direct impact on Hungarian dairy farmers. These negative factors have increased the costs of the sector, narrowing the ability of those active in it to operate efficiently. -
Estimating the economic potential of rural microregions
71-79Views:113Experts have been involved in the problems of determining microregions in Hungary since their establishment. In Hungary, the microregions (NUTS17 IV) were established by top-down method. This system cut through existing economic and cultural connections. The villages set up their own bottom-up microregions, which have tighter connections than the official regions. In my article, I estimate the economic potential of two regions, the regions Erdôspuszta (Hungary) and Hohenlohe (Germany), after analyzing the relevant literature on determining economic potential. Projects realized by enterprises and civil organizations have strategic significance in the economies of settlements, and it is true that their developers are not members of the formal management of the settlement. The local governments, however, should conduct realization and topdown of projects, and they have to have an image of the future and strategic plans. The present Hungarian practice, which appears in supply oriented applications, is not expedient over the long-run.The projects of settlements are run parallel to each other; they therefore fail to reach any synergic effect. The aim is harmonizing and building projects onto each other.
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Multifunctional agriculture: An engine of regional economic growth?
7-15Views:123The historical role of agriculture in economic geography and recent conceptual developments – including multifunctional agriculture (MFA), the new economic geography, amenity-driven growth, and the “world is flat” and “creative class” hypotheses – are examined, and recent empirical research in NorthAmerica and Europe is reviewed, in order to assess the potential for MFA as an engine of regional economic growth. Ideal MFA policy corrects market failures and is mostly amenity-augmenting. It has the capacity to enhance opportunities for farmers on urban fringe; stimulate growth in high-amenity rural regions accessible to cities that offer opportunities for high-value work; and generate growth in relatively remote high-amenity regions. The scope for market-failure-correcting MFA policy to propel economic growth in lessfavored regions is limited – remoteness is non-responsive to policy in the short to medium term, and amenities that attract in-migration (e.g. proximity to sea, lakes, mountains, pleasant climate) are givens for favored locations but can at best be complemented by pro-active policy – but not trivial. While this paper focuses on regional economic growth, it well to rememberthat growth is not everything. Regions unlikely to experience growth need to create satisfying futures. Market-failure-correcting MFA policy has the potential to improve quality of life, well-being, and perhaps incomes in many if not all rural places regardless of location. This accomplishment would not be trivial – economic growth for all regions regardless of resources, amenities, and remoteness is not a serious prospect, and regions in decline face daunting problems maintaining essential services and quality of life.
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Civic organizations and citizens-an alternative approach to understanding civic engagement
137-141Views:116The importance of nonprofit, and inside classic civic sector is usually approached on the basis of figures of the Statistical Office. Based on these, we may assume these to have a slight or intermediate role in the greater economy regarding economic capacity and human resources. Actually, we cannot have a closer look into local conditions and circumstances which would contribute to a better understanding of how civic organizations are connected to citizens. It is difficult to estimate the background, effect, personal movements behind the civic sector; international literature discusses this issue in the framework of civic engagement. In a private examination, I may also contribute to the alternative approach to the importance of the civic organization sector by studying and measuring the complex indicator termed “civic involvement”. Additionally, a small scale pilot examination has revealed a better, more precise description of the connection between citizens and civic organizations, which may also enable the better planning of local municipal interventions.
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Integration Efforts in Agriculture
91-96Views:145The economic and political transition brought many challenges for the Hungarian agricultural sector. The break-up of large agricultural holdings had serious negative impacts on food production and on the export of agricultural products. Capital intensive profit-seeking intermediaries dominate the trading of agricultural goods that has injurious effects in terms of downward pressure on production prices and an increase in consumer prices. Cooperatives have a key role in effectively tackling the common challenges that small-scale producers have to face. More vertical integration along the food chain could contribute to providing rural employment and to an increase in living standards in rural areas. This study reviews the development, the specific features and the driving forces of modern cooperatives in Central Europe in general, and in Hungary in particular. The focus is on the integrator role of cooperatives and their future role in our globalised world.
JEL Classification: Q10, Q13
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Problem analysis of the Hungarian tobacco sector
161-166Views:173The Hungarian tobacco sector went through significant changes in the last decades. The reason of the changes were our accession to the EU, then the changes in subsidiary system, the effect of the world and within the EU’s strict tobacco policy. The number of tobacco farms declined and the future became uncertain for the farmers. Size of the farms increased and there were a concentration in the sector, so the smaller scale farmers’ activity ceased. It causes several problems in rural areas, because one of the main strengths of the sector was its significant role in rural development, as the tobacco in small scales was able to produce an acceptable income in such areas where due to the poor soil quality economically successfully growing for other plants are not suitable. The main goal of this paper is to present the Hungarian tobacco sector and its main strengths, weaknesses, possibilities and threats compared to the European Union’s situation.
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The assessment of intellectual capital in Polish regions
101-105Views:164In a knowledge-based economy intangible assets are indispensable to achieve competitive advantages. Resources like intellectual capital are perceived as crucial factors especially for regional growth. Intellectual capital is comprehended as a multidimensional concept, defined and explained in many various ways, depending on the context and further application. The purposes of this article is to consider the role and importance of the intellectual capital for regional development and competitiveness and to try to use it for an estimation of regional advance progress. On the basis of literature review the article provides a framework to analyse the intellectual capital and its main components. The central attention of the paper focuses on the evaluation of the intellectual capital in Polish regions and its influence on regional performance. The paper surveys the empirical examination of 16 Polish regions in terms of intellectual capital and simultaneously assesses the level of intellectual capital in rural areas. The article provides the insight into the role and value of the intellectual capital in Polish regions.
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Adjustment of poland’s agriculture and food sector to challenges of agricultural policy of the European Union
39-44Views:152Paper is aimed in assessment of first period of Poland’s membership in EU and covering agriculture and rural areas with the support under the Common Agricultural Policy in the context of future challenges faced by the agricultural policy.Analysis shows that accession to EU became a strong impulse for growth of the Polish food economy, however the main challenge for the Common Agricultural Policy in future, from Poland’s perspective, will be strengthening the multifunctional agriculture, i.e. territorial cohesion and positive effects of agricultural activity on natural environment.
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Extent and characteristic of diversification among Hungarian agricultural holdings
37-44Views:124Through the connection to rural resources agriculture has an impact on the three functions of countryside: ecology, society and economy. Resources of economy and production environment are continuously changing thus farmers have to adapt to these changing circumstances. One of the adaptation methods is the diversification of activities to promote effective capacity utilization and additional profit. However there is no standard definition of diversification from the point of agricultural economics aspect both traditional approaches and the influence of European Union should also be considered to define it. Diversification and alternative income opportunities could be subsistence possibilities for several farmers. This could be defined not only at private holdings’ but at enterprises’ level. According to a traditional approach Hungarian statistical databases collect on-farm and off-farm agricultural activities depending on the connection to resources of a farm business. Analysing this database an overall picture could be defined considering the position and characteristic of diversified farmers and the popularity of each activity among agricultural producers. Based on a study, published in 2011 (Hamza, 2011) this paper also involves the latest statistical data (2010, 2013). Analysing dataset of period 2000-2013 this paper gives an overall overview about national and regional position and characteristics of diversified holdings and activities.
JEL code: Q19
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Using DEA to evaluate efficiency of higher education
79-82Views:534The aim of the higher education reform process both in Hungary and in the European countries is establishing a competitive, qualitative higher education with efficiently operating institutions. The question of efficiency needs increased attention not only because of the decline of the state support but also the rapid raise of the student mass. In the educationsystemit’snot easy to measurethe output of the services.The situation is more complicated if an organisation or a sector has multiple inputs and outputs. In this case a possible method of determining efficiency is Data Envelopment Analysis. In my paper I’d like to introduce this method and use it to compare the efficiency of higher education systems. urthermore I am examining whether their efficiency is influenced by the extent of the contribution of the state and the private sector or socio-economic factors like GDP per capita and education level of parents.
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Reducing consumption of food with high level of fat, sugar and/or salt among young generation
79-85Views:147The young generation is the most influenced and vulnerable segment of the market. Food with high level of fat, sugar and/or salt are popularised for this segment.At the same time nearly 7 people die of obesity or from complications of obesity in Hungary each hour – one every 9 minutes. Less than 10% of youth are of the belief of eating healthy and more then one third of youth don’t take care about healthy eating. The young generation can be especially influenced by use of well-known persons, prize games and free gifts. The idea of fat tax’s introduction could be an obvious proposal.
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Examination of leader communication in agriculture
41-47Views:166My doctoral and research topic was significant in the examination and analysis of leader activities in the framework of a functional, modularly constructed empirical research program of the Department of Management Sciences. I could make statements and correspond about leader activities; these exercises and the influential factors on these activities were studied by the examinations and analyses of leader communication. In this article, I will demonstrate the research I made in on agricultural communication, as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Management Sciences.
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The role of the time factor in the manager functions
101-108Views:130The role of the time factor in management is increasing. Change directs attention to the time factor from the point of view of the organisation,and management does the same from that of the person. I examined the time management practice of managers of organisations related to agribusiness, and the reaction time characterising the adaption ability of the organisations through a questionnaire survey. I analysed the collected data with scientifically established statistical methods. During studying resources, managing tasks, change, reaction time and effect I explored the features of time as resource, the significance of the time factor, the improvability of time efficiency in the different managing functions, the factors supporting and hindering the quick reaction of organisations, and what rearrangements can be seen in management work nowadays.
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The study of group and team management in agribusiness companies
75-77Views:131For almost three decades now that the operation of groups and teams became highlighted by scientific examinations and widespread acknowledged leverage for improving corporate efficiency and effectiveness. Much is known about general conditions of operation, still little is known about managerial attitudes, behaviour in operating them. Considering the agribusiness sector, we have hundreds of years of traditions; although operational rules, internal properties, managerial aspects are poorly acknowledged. The Department of Management of University of Debrecen has been conducting research in this field for many years now. Its research program enabled me to work out a questionnaire for surveying agribusiness organizations so that I could identify major and typical characteristics of performance groups. In this article I intend to more precisely describe internal rules, relations and characteristics of this phenomenon.
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Subsidies are Potential Sources of Profitable Management – Their Payment Between 2010 and 2016
97-120Views:183Based on the allocations and distributions of subsidies in the sheep sector in the previous years (2004-2009), the authors examined the sum of aids claimed and paid from 2010 to 2016 and their farm-size related changes. The following data were collected from the Agricultural and Rural Development Institute on payments under specific subsidy titles, classified by sheep and goat farm sizes: 0-50; 51-100, 101-200, 201-300 and also 0-100, 101-300, 301-500, 501-1000, 1001-5000 and above 5000. Data procession was carried out by the SPSS for Windows 22 program. The size and population of the examined sheep sector underwent visible changes during the studied years leading to a reduction rather than growth. Their analysis highlights that size distribution of sheep farms has changed significantly in recent years, combined with simultaneous modifications of their sheep stock sizes in production. Their conclusions suggest that effects of years and farm sizes in the sheep and goat sector have considerably modified the aid sums paid under different titles.
JEL Classification: H5, Q14
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Relationship between the qualification and labour market situation of disabled workers in Hungary
23-25Views:125My PhD research focuses on special rehabilitation firms (they are specialised to employ disabled people) and their employees. Two questionnaires for the above mentioned firms and their employees were created in order to gather information on their activities as well as to explore the relationship between the firms and their employees. Altogether 1030 employees and 109 employers filled in the questionnaires. The current study shows the results of this survey. It can be stated that this paper shows the risk of finding a workplace after a certain time period. According to the latest trends I analyse the labour market situation of people living with disabilities with survival analysis. The survival analysis is able to manage partial information, as well. After summarizing all claims of participants we can make an impression in this area and demonstrate the problems for the labour market generally. I use the Log-rank, Breslow and Tahane-Ware probe.
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Automated valuation model for livestock appraisal in loaning practice
37-42Views:105Actualization of loan security (mortgage) value is of major importance in Hungarian loaning practice. Due to the recession in economics, the value of agricultural portfolio of banks has decreased a great deal, though not to such a great extent as other branches of the economy. Depreciation of estate stock is compensated with additional collateral security. Besides other stock, often temporarily and out of necessity, livestock is presented as additional collateral security. From the loaners’ point of view, however, the registered inventory value does not guarantee security. The authors have set up an appraisal method giving professional guidance through automated valuation as to how dairy stock can be used as mortgage for loan security. Hereby we are to present the details of both the theory and the methodology of a model that is appropriate for the valuation of dairy livestock on an MS Excel basis. Thus, the process is fast and has more prospects for all parties in the loaning or leasing business. The method involves the features of livestock technology, the expected realized profit, and breed stock value. By the implementation of this method, the loaners can calculate the value of loan recovery (loan to value) with acceptable security.
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