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Empirical evaluation of profitability gaps in Swiss agriculture
The thesis will use a production function approach to identify productivity and profitability gaps in Swiss agriculture.
Keywords: Farms, production function, profitability gaps, total factor productivity
Policy support to farms is commonly justified by the income gap between the agricultural and non-agricultural sector (e.g., Rocchi et al. 2020). At the same time, large differences in profitability and productivity also exist within the agricultural sector. While a large number of studies evaluate agricultural productivity change and its sources, much less is known about profitability dispersion across farms and the underlying reasons. Against this background, this master’s thesis will empirically investigate such differences in Swiss agriculture using econometric approaches. The thesis will provide insights into the profitability distribution across farms to inform policy-making with respect to farm income support.
**Research questions**
- What are potential sources of productivity and profitability differences?
- How is farm profitability distributed across Switzerland in a given farm sector?
- What are the sources of such differences (e.g., environmental conditions or managerial ability)?
**Methods**
The thesis will apply econometric panel data methods to quantify farm-level profitability differences. Following Maue et al. (2020), production functions will be estimated with different fixed-effects configurations to identify sources of productivity and profitability differences. Swiss farm-level accountancy data will be provided to the student. The thesis is jointly supervised by the AECP group and Agroscope.
Policy support to farms is commonly justified by the income gap between the agricultural and non-agricultural sector (e.g., Rocchi et al. 2020). At the same time, large differences in profitability and productivity also exist within the agricultural sector. While a large number of studies evaluate agricultural productivity change and its sources, much less is known about profitability dispersion across farms and the underlying reasons. Against this background, this master’s thesis will empirically investigate such differences in Swiss agriculture using econometric approaches. The thesis will provide insights into the profitability distribution across farms to inform policy-making with respect to farm income support.
**Research questions**
- What are potential sources of productivity and profitability differences? - How is farm profitability distributed across Switzerland in a given farm sector? - What are the sources of such differences (e.g., environmental conditions or managerial ability)?
**Methods**
The thesis will apply econometric panel data methods to quantify farm-level profitability differences. Following Maue et al. (2020), production functions will be estimated with different fixed-effects configurations to identify sources of productivity and profitability differences. Swiss farm-level accountancy data will be provided to the student. The thesis is jointly supervised by the AECP group and Agroscope.
The goal of this thesis is to quantify profitability differences in Swiss crop farming and to investigate the sources of these differences.
The goal of this thesis is to quantify profitability differences in Swiss crop farming and to investigate the sources of these differences.
Supervision: Stefan Wimmer (swimmer@ethz.ch), Robert Finger (rofinger@ethz.ch), Christian Mueller (Agroscope)
Supervision: Stefan Wimmer (swimmer@ethz.ch), Robert Finger (rofinger@ethz.ch), Christian Mueller (Agroscope)