Labour Drivers in the Agricultural Sector of the European Union

The social role of the farms is, especially, relevant in the rural areas where the socioeconomic problems are, often, more visible. In this perspective, this study aims to investigate the interrelationships of the labour input with other variables inside the farms and assess how the sector may create more employment in a sustainable way. For that, the labour input was, first, correlated with other farm variables and after analysed through factor analysis approaches and cross-section econometric methodologies, considering as basis the Cobb-Douglas and Verdoorn-Kaldor models. The main findings highlight relevant insights to improve the social dimension of the European Union farms. The labour input growth rate is positively influenced by the total output growth rates and negatively impacted by the total productivity growth. The effects from the investment and from the subsidies are residual or not significant.

Labour Input Logic of Street-Level Bureaucrats: Evidence from Chinese Market Supervision Commission

The theory of street-level bureaucracy and its relevant data have proven the expected duties of the frontline staff of local government may be excessive but their time spent working remains quite low. Using data from participatory observations of street-level officials in a Chinese city, this study reveals the logic of this labour input paradox. Organizational climate incentive and promotional incentive jointly influence the time allocation of street-level bureaucrats. The organizational climate incentive reflects the weak incentive characteristic of the maintenance function of labour; promotional incentives have a strong impact on motivation, which is characteristic of the promotional function of labour. These findings reveal the costs of the New Public Management movement in an organization lacking an effective promotion mechanism and a positive organizational climate incentive. This is a snapshot of the dilemma faced by China’s public organization reforms, but it is also a problem other country must solve.

Measuring the Occupational Impact of AI: Tasks, Cognitive Abilities and AI Benchmarks

In this paper we develop a framework for analysing the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on occupations. This framework maps 59 generic tasks from worker surveys and an occupational database to 14 cognitive abilities (that we extract from the cognitive science literature) and these to a comprehensive list of 328 AI benchmarks used to evaluate research intensity across a broad range of different AI areas. The use of cognitive abilities as an intermediate layer, instead of mapping work tasks to AI benchmarks directly, allows for an identification of potential AI exposure for tasks for which AI applications have not been explicitly created. An application of our framework to occupational databases gives insights into the abilities through which AI is most likely to affect jobs and allows for a ranking of occupations with respect to AI exposure. Moreover, we show that some jobs that were not known to be affected by previous waves of automation may now be subject to higher AI exposure. Finally, we find that some of the abilities where AI research is currently very intense are linked to tasks with comparatively limited labour input in the labour markets of advanced economies (e.g., visual and auditory processing using deep learning, and sensorimotor interaction through (deep) reinforcement learning). This article appears in the special track on AI and Society.

Application of Budgeting in Selected Municipal Companies in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship

This study aimed to determine the scope to which budgeting is used as a management method in selected enterprises of the municipal sector in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship. The research goal was achieved through the following tasks: identification of the reasons for and methods of budgeting used in enterprises of the municipal sector in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship and determining the methods of controlling budget implementation in the examined entities. The use of budgeting in the practice of Polish municipal enterprises, as well as the knowledge of how to use this management instrument, seems to be relatively common. Nevertheless, there are still entities convinced of the insufficient amount of benefits resulting from budgeting and that these benefits may be lower than the labour input and costs incurred in budgeting. Research has revealed that budgeting is used primarily in medium and large companies with annual revenues of over PLN 50,000,000 and employing over 200 employees. An important feature that connects all entities using budgeting is the desire to reduce costs and improve financial results. The desire to increase internal control and make more effective decisions was the main reason for the implementation of budgeting in these enterprises. The dominant methods of budgeting are the top-down and incremental methods. Budget control is exercised by various people and units. Disclosed deviations most often relate to exceeding the planned level of costs and failure to meet the deadlines for renovation and investment tasks.

Hysteresis and sources of aggregate employment inertia

It is widely recognized that aggregate employment dynamics is characterized by hysteresis. In the presence of hysteresis, the long run level of employment instead of being unique and history-independent, depends on the adjustment path that is taken, which includes the monetary and fiscal measures. It is thus important to study the presence of hysteresis in the macrodynamics of employment to understand whether the recession followed 2007s financial crisis will have permanent effects, and prospectively to conduct fiscal and monetary policies. The main contribution of this paper is to analyse the relative impact of the main sources hysteresis (non-convex adjustment costs, uncertainty and the flexibility of working time arrangements) to the width of the employment band of inaction. For that purpose, a switching employment equation was estimated from a computational implementation of the linear play model of hysteresis. From our results we found significant hysteresis effects in the aggregate employment dynamics caused by the presence of non-convex adjustment costs as uncertainty. We also found that the flexibility firms may have to adjust labour input by varying the number of hours of work per employee helps to mitigate the effect of uncertainty upon the band of inaction.

Germany’s Growth Prospects against the Backdrop of Demographic Change

This paper shows how the German Council of Economic Experts (GCEE) determines Germany’s potential output, and compares the results with those of the European Commission. The approach of the European Commission is a natural benchmark, as it provides the basis for the deficit and debt rules of the European Union. In comparison with the European Commission’s method, the GCEE’s method places greater emphasis on demographic factors in estimating labour input. Additionally, both approaches differ regarding how they estimate the structural unemployment rate and total factor productivity. Finally, this paper discusses the limitations of, and the different options for estimating potential output.

Estimating a non-neutral production function

In this article we estimate a production function that allows us to depart from the standard hypothesis of Hicks neutrality (HN) while also coping with the endogeneity of a dummy innovation variable. We consider specifications that relax HN, and we derive the testable conditions for common parametric approximations under which HN holds. The model is estimated using instrumental variable methods, allowing innovation to have a heterogeneous effect on the production process. The econometric analysis rejects HN and highlights three main features: a biased technical change (TC), with a higher ratio between the marginal product of labour and the marginal product of capital for innovative firms; a locally progressive TC; fully heterogeneous technologies when comparing innovative to non-innovative firms. We also address other issues, taking a closer look at the effect of process innovation and the role of sector heterogeneity and considering the potential endogeneity of labour input.

Trends in Agricultural Land in EU Countries of the Baltic Sea Region from the Perspective of Resilience and Food Security

Agricultural land is crucial for the production of food and is, thereby, directly connected to food security. Agriculture is threatened by a multitude of hazards, such as climate change, peak oil, peak soil and peak phosphorus. These hazards call for a more resilient food system that can deliver food security for the global population in the future. In this paper, we analyse the Baltic Sea region’s ten European Union (EU) member states, investigating which trends are to be found in statistics between 2005 to 2016 on the development of agricultural land. In our paper, we analyse these trends of agricultural land by looking at three categories of data: (1) utilised agricultural area, (2) number of farms and (3) agricultural labour input. The results showed a trend that agricultural land is increasingly dominated by large farms, whilst over 1 million predominantly small farms have disappeared, and agricultural-labour input has dropped by more than 26%. These trends point towards a mechanisation of production, where larger and less labour-intensive farms take over production. This could partly be due to the EU common agricultural policy, which tends to favour large farms over small. Further, we argue for the importance of farm-size diversity, and about the dangers to food security that a system that is dominated by large farms possesses. Lastly, we conclude that the concept of resilience needs to be better included in policy development and food-system planning, and that more research needs to be done, analysing how existing agricultural policies impact the parameters studied in this paper.

ANALISIS FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI KEBERHASILAN USAHATANI JAMBU METE DI SULAWESI TENGGARA

<p>Metode AHP (analytical hierarchy process) digunakan untuk menganalisis faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi keberhasilan usahatani jambu mete. Data dikumpulkan melalui wawancara secara mendalam dengan para ahli mete dan melalui wawancara terstruktur dengan petani jambu mete di empat desa dalam dua kecamatan di Kabupaten Kendari dan di empat desa dalam dua kecamatan di Kabupaten Buton, Sulawesi Tenggara yang dilaksanakan pada bulan Mei 2002. Hasil analisis menunjukkan ada 12 faktor penentu yaitu modal, tenaga kerja, sarana produksi, lahan, teknologi, managerial, lembaga pemasaran, transportasi, informasi pemasaran, kelompok tani, penyuluh dan lembaga keuangan. Empat faktor, yaitu tenaga kerja, sarana produksi, lembaga pemasaran dan transportasi bcrada dalam kondisi dapat diterima. Tiga faktor yaitu modal, lahan dan kelompok tani bcrada dalam kondisi sangat buruk, sedangkan lima faktor lainnya berada dalam kondisi buruk. Dilihat dari nilai kcpentingannya, tiga faktor yaitu modal yang kondisinya sangat buruk, teknologi dan informasi pemasaran yang kondisinya buruk, memiliki tingkat kepentingan yang tinggi. Ha] ini menunjukkan pioritas pembenahan usahatani jambu mete harus diarahkan pada ketiga faktor tersebut.</p><p>Kata kunci: Anacardium occidentale L, usahatani, faktor penentu</p><p> </p><p><strong>ABSTRACT </strong></p><p><strong>Analysis of determinant factors in cashew farming performance in Southeast Sulawesi</strong></p><p>Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method was applied to analyze determinant factors in cashew farming performance. Data were collected through indepth interview with cashew experts and through structured interview with cashew farmers in four villages in two districts in Kendari Regency and in four villages in two districts in Buton Regency, Southeast Sulawesi in May 2002. The results showed that there were 12 determinant factors, i.e. the availability of capital, labour, input production, land condition, technology, managerial, market institution, transportation, market information, farmers institution, farming instructor, and financial institution. Four factors, labour, input production, transportation and market institution are in fair condition. Three factors, capital, land and fanners institution were in very poor condition. And the rest ive factors were in poor condition. The effort to increase the cashew farming performance has to be focused on capital, technology and market information factors which are in poor or very poor conditions and are crucial determinants.</p><p>Key words: Anacardium occidentale L, farming, determinant factors</p>