Policy and the Performance of Bulgarian Agricultural Organizations

Abstract

This paper examines the performance of Bulgarian agriculture since 1960, using an aggregate production function analysis. Particular attention is paid to how organizational changes affected performance, and the implications of the Bulgarian experience for current reforms in centrally-planned economies. Results indicate that organizational reforms in the 1970s and 1980s did not increase output and productivity growth. Significant estimates of increasing returns to scale, declining rates of disembodied technological change growth and interperiod differences in input coefficients suggest that these failures lie both in the difficulties associated with the implementation of new organizational regimes and in the changes in technology between policy periods. This indicates that the outcome of current reforms in centrally-planned economies depends critically on the methods of and the commitment to their implementation.