 Why Is the Agriculture of Advanced Western Economies Still Organized by Family Farms? Will This Continue to Be So in the Future?Gunther Schmitt European Review of Agricultural Economics, 1991, vol. 18, issue 3-4, 443-58 Abstract: The dominance and persistency of family farms in industrialized nonsocialist countries can only be explained by the theory that farm households organize agricultural and household production, and also very often off-farm employment, efficiently. The organizational unity of farms and households in agriculture has to be seen as a consequence of limited economies of size relative to the size of the family's labor capacity. Economies of size are increasing as well as labor capacity due to labor saving technological innovations. Smaller than technically "optimal" farm sizes are further to be explained by lower transaction costs of family farms vis-a-vis hired labor farms. Future changes of these determinants and their implications for family farming are discussed. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press. Date: 1991 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:erevae:v:18:y:1991:i:3-4:p:443-58 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article European Review of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Timothy Richards, Salvatore Di Falco, Céline Nauges and Vincenzina Caputo More articles in European Review of Agricultural Economics from Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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