Economic performance of agricultural enterprises in Bulgaria

Todor Yalamov, Albena Vutsova and Martina Arabadjieva

Abstract: The paper provides new empirical evidence on entrepreneurship in agriculture, its early performance (in the second year of establishment), labor productivity, operating revenues, and assets on firm-level data of all companies in the sector. The firm level economic performance is analyzed against a more general background of the sector (production, exports and subsidies) in a longer time frame. Gini coefficients are calculated on various indicators (operating revenues and assets in 2010 to 2018, agricultural subsidies for 2017/2018 and 2018/2019) and units of analysis and they all suggest extremely high inequality in the sector, which is in contrast with previous studies suggesting improving of the situation. The new agricultural entrepreneurs are more effective (relative to the years after the start) as they have prior relevant management experience, easier access to finance and enter the market as value chain entrepreneurs. The paper has important policy implications that the government should redesign its policies, which facilitate the inequality in the sector.

Keywords: agriculture; concentration; entrepreneurship; Gini; labor productivity

Date published: 2021-10-19