Reforming Polish agriculture: Productivity growth and market behavior of socialized and private farms

In the economic analyses of development in the socialized and private sectors of postwar Polish agriculture, the growth path of labor productivity and land productivity was identified as following the European path of productivity growth that was first introduced by Hayami and Ruttan (1985). Unlike Wong's (1985) international study of agriculture, the changes in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) for Polish agriculture were found to be in a nondeclining trend in the postwar period. The derived TFP, however, was quite sensitive to the data constructions. In the present study, Poland's socialized sector was found to have maintained a higher growth in TFP over time. The favorable institutional arrangements, such as easier access to modern inputs and credits by the socialized sector created the difference in relative positions of TFP growth.;Other data analyses included the application of a crop model with a geometric price expectation to both sectors of Polish agriculture. Only the rye model for the private sector showed significant coefficients. The major causes of no price responsiveness of supply to crop production in the private sector may well be restricted supply of such inputs as chemical fertilizers and machineries, the poor organization in the national research and extension system, and the lack of financial support to the private sector. More significant price responsiveness of supply was observed for the pork and beef supply in the private sector of Polish agriculture. A livestock model with a polynomial distribution was augmented to the pork and beef supply in the private sector.;The policy implications for the unproved performance of Polish agriculture suggest reorganizing the structure of input markets to facilitate the smoother flow of production inputs to the private sector.;Other important findings for Polish agriculture were derived from the study of the production technology structure. When a generalized Leontief cost function model was applied to sectoral data in Polish agriculture, the existence of allocative inefficiency was statistically proved for the private sector. This finding was considered to result from institutional constraints, such as heavy government regulations in input markets.