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Productivity and international competitiveness of agriculture in the European Union and the United States
Author(s) -
Ball V. Eldon,
Butault JeanPierre,
Juan Carlos San,
Mora Ricardo
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.29
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1574-0862
pISSN - 0169-5150
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-0862.2010.00476.x
Subject(s) - european union , productivity , relative price , agriculture , economics , production (economics) , international trade , agricultural productivity , international economics , dual (grammatical number) , agricultural economics , macroeconomics , geography , art , literature , archaeology
This study looks at international competitiveness of agriculture in the European Union and the United States. The most intuitive concept is that of price competitiveness. We calculate relative prices for 11 member states of the European Union and the United States for the period 1973–2002. We assume that markets are perfectly competitive and in long‐run equilibrium, so that the observed price always equals average total cost, as measured by the cost dual to the production function. This assumption is used in our calculation of relative competitiveness and productivity gaps between the European Union and the United States and in our decomposition of relative price movements between changes in relative input prices and changes in relative productivity levels.