Does land fragmentation affect farm performance? A case study from Brittany. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 40, April 2013

Agricultural land fragmentation is widespread and may affect farmers’ decisions and impact farm performance, either negatively or positively. The authors investigated this impact for the western region of Brittany, France, in 2007, regressing a set of performance indicators on a set of fragmentation descriptors. The performance indicators (production costs, yields, revenue, profitability, technical and scale efficiency) were calculated at the farm level using Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data, while the fragmentation descriptors were calculated at the municipality level using data from the cartographic field pattern registry (RPG). The various fragmentation descriptors enabled the authors to account for not only the traditional number and average size of plots, but also their geographical scattering. They found that farms experienced higher costs of production, lower crop yields and lower profitability where land fragmentation (LF) was more pronounced. Total technical efficiency was not found to be significantly related to any of the municipality LF descriptors used, while scale efficiency was lower where the average distance to the nearest neighbouring plot was greater. Pure technical efficiency was found to be negatively related to the average number of plots in the municipality, with the unexpected result that it was also positively related to the average distance to the nearest neighbouring plot. By simulating the impact of hypothetical consolidation programmes on average pre-tax profits and wheat yield, the study also showed that the marginal benefits of reducing fragmentation may differ with respect to the improved LF dimension and the performance indicator considered. The analysis therefore shows that the measures of land fragmentation usually used in the literature do not reveal the full set of significant relationships with farm performance and that, in particular, measures accounting for distance should be considered more systematically.

Performance Indicators in Agricultural Financial Markets. Factor Markets Working Document No. 43, May 2013

This study attempts to develop performance indicators for the financial markets based on the findings in an earlier Factor Markets Working Paper (No. 33, “Agricultural credit market institutions: A comparison of selected European countries”) and on FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) data. Two indicators were developed. One measured the long-term economic sustainability of agricultural firms since the financial characteristics of the firms were perceived as important factors when rejecting a loan applicant. If the indicator works, it should show that a low value in this indicator is related to the performance in the financial markets. The second indicator was the loan-to-value (LTV), or debt-to-asset ratio, the reasoning behind this indicator is that low values can point to credit constraints, and in WP 33 we saw that the interviewed experts expected LTVs to be much higher than what is actually the case. We find that the first indicator can’t be used to measure the performance of the financial institutions, since we can’t show any relationship between the indicator and activities in the financial markets. However, the indicator is valuable for its measurement of the long-term financial sustainability of the agricultural sector, or of the firms. The loan-to-value indicator does imply that most countries would have room to increase the credit.

Social Indicators for the European Community, 1960-1975. July 1977

This volume 'Social Indicators' is the first of its kind to be produced by the Statistical Office of the European Communities. It presents a selection of statistics on social conditions and trends in member countries. Sections; Demography; Employment; Working life; Standard of living; Social protection; Health; Edudation; Housing; International notes.

Resource Efficiency Indicators for Policy-Making. CEPS Working Document No. 415/November 2015

In the EU, resource efficiency has been high on the political agenda since 2011, when the European Commission first included it as one of the seven flagship initiatives in its Europe 2020 Strategy for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. Resource efficiency is not only considered an environmental necessity, but also a political, economic and security opportunity. This paper first stresses the benefits and opportunities for the EU of improving its resource efficiency. It then explains the added value of the www.measuring-progress.eu web tool, which aims to improve the way policy-makers and others involved in the policy process can access, understand and use indicators for resource efficiency. It provides practical examples of relevant indicators in the form of the EU Resource Efficiency Scoreboard and a case study showing how the web tool established by NETGREEN can be used in practice. The paper concludes with a number of policy messages.