The importance of succession on business growth: A case study of family farms in Switzerland and Norway

Stefan Mann (), Klaus Mittenzwei and Franziska Hasselmann
Additional contact information
Klaus Mittenzwei: Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute
Franziska Hasselmann: Agroscope Research Station, Ettenhausen, Switzerland

Journal of Socio-Economics in Agriculture (Until 2015: Yearbook of Socioeconomics in Agriculture), 2013, vol. 6, issue 1, 109-137

Abstract: This paper develops the hypothesis that the level of growth or decline of small family farms is strongly connected to the farms’ succession process. Around the process of intra-family succession, both disinvestment in cases of farm abandonment or conversion to part-time farming and investment activities in case of transfer to the next generation reach the highest levels. This hypothesis is confirmed for four different growth indicators using Swiss and Norwegian farm data for the period 2004 to 2009. Management strategy is another significant factor explaining business development, whereas growth and shrinking processes are accelerated by a high degree of specialization.

Keywords: Growth; Family Life Cycle; comparative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L25 Q12 R29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://archive.jsagr.org/v6/YSA2013_Mann.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cha:ysa001:v:6:y:2013:i:1:p:109-137

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Socio-Economics in Agriculture (Until 2015: Yearbook of Socioeconomics in Agriculture) from Swiss Society for Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Simon Briner ().