Seeking for Convergence in the Agricultural Sector Performance under the Changes of Uruguay Round and 1992 CAP Reform
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for the opportunity to review this paper.
The manuscript was very enjoyable to read, well written and providing the relevant information and references. I have only a few remarks and few comments which may be instrumental in improving the paper:
In agriculture, the term convergence can take on different meanings. i.e. In the lexicon of the CAP, we talk about convergence with reference to the convergence of direct payments. I would therefore ask the authors to clarify the convergence to which reference is made, starting from the abstract. In particular when convergence is indicated σ and β type
In line 94, I believe that there is a strong motivation behind the choice to divide the period into two sub-periods, the authors can explain the reasons for this choice.
I think the paper would benefit if in the discussion section the results were discussed in the light of what were the policies at the world level and in the EU (WTO impasse, CAP choices, etc.).
Author Response
Response to Comments of Reviewer #1:
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for her/his kind words and the very constructive comments. The following text provides answers to the Reviewer’s comments and it reports the proper corrections.
The Reviewer’s comments are presented within a colored frame, whereas the answers are given within the frame starting with the statement “[Response/Correction Action]” and ending with the mark “[■]”
Please refer at the revised manuscript for the revised reference list.
1. In agriculture, the term convergence can take on different meanings. i.e. In the lexicon of the CAP, we talk about convergence with reference to the convergence of direct payments. I would therefore ask the authors to clarify the convergence to which reference is made, starting from the abstract.In particular when convergence is indicated σ and β type.
[Response/Correction Action]
The exact type of convergence tested by the paper has been clarified in the abstract and in the “materials and methods” section
In the abstract the following entry was added (lines 14-16):
“The paper adopts a global scale of analysis and assesses convergence in terms of value generation, energy efficiency and technical efficiency.”
In the “materials and methods” section the following entry was also included (lines 104-108):
“It is well known that the last CAP reform emphasizes on the convergence of direct payments under the First Pillar framework [19]. This is not the case of this paper, because it extends it, in order to provide a more holistic analysis in geographical terms but also in the particular aspect of the agricultural production that shape the competitive position of each country.”
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2. In line 94, I believe that there is a strong motivation behind the choice to divide the period into two sub-periods, the authors can explain the reasons for this choice.
[Response/Correction Action]
The choice of the period division is furtherly elaborated in lines 108-117.
“The paper employs a series of regression models in order to examine if the policy changes that have occurred in the beginning of the 1990 decade promoted the convergence of the agricultural sectors’ performance across the globe. To do so, the period is divided in two distinct sub-periods; 1980-1992 and 1992-2016 and the convergence hypothesis is tested for both of them. This specific threshold is very important on both European and global basis, because, as it was stated above, it was the starting point for a series of strategic amendments of policy level. The common characteristic of these reforms and agreements was the alleviation of trade distorting policies and enhancement of sustainability and environmental protection in the rural environment [20]. Therefore, it is quite important to set 1992 as a division point for this assessment.”
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3. I think the paper would benefit if in the discussion section the results were discussed in the light of what were the policies at the world level and in the EU
[Response/Correction Action]
The discussion is complemented with the policies objectives (lines 360-375)
“Moreover, in order for the research to have a strict policy evaluation orientation, the paper focused on a certain benchmark time point, this of the Uruguay round and the CAP reform, which was used in order to drive the analysis in two distinct time periods. Given the fact that in early nineties strategic and radical changes started taking place on both European and global level, the division of this time period into two sub-periods is essential. The major difference between them is that developed countries until 1992 were implementing agricultural policies characterized by increased protectionism, expressed by applying distorting trade measures and coupled subsidy schemes to specific cultivations [31]. The continuous CAP reforms, in collaboration with the Uruguay Round agreement, mitigated in the following years the negative impact of the previous policies and established homogenous policy approaches for both developed and developing countries. Therefore, the significance of assessing the convergence of crop production sector by using common indicators, which are being used for assessing policies’ performance too, is a novel approach tailored to the new status of agricultural production and trade. When convergence occurs, it signifies that horizontal policy approach is capable to improve the performance of the sector. When it does not, there is a signal that further, perhaps more tailored to specific needs, action required the same target to be achieved.”
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Reviewer 2 Report
The article is written on an interesting topic – what impacts policies had on agricultural sector convergence. I think the article is well written but some minor revisions would make it even better:
1. First of all, the introduction and literature review sections are rather mixed. A better motivation behind writing about the topic together with the aim of the article and the description of article structure is needed in the introduction.
2. As to the literature review, the following recent articles might also be useful to add:
Csaki Cs., Jambor A. (2019): Convergence or divergence – Transition in agriculture of Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States revisited. Agricultural Economics – Czech, 65: 160–174.
Henke, R., Benos, T., Filippis, F. de, Giua, M., Pierangeli, F. and D'Andrea, MRP. (2018): The New Common Agricultural Policy: Ηow do Member States Respond to Flexibility?, Journal of Common Market Studies, 56(2): 403-419.
3. In terms of methodology, I do not see how energy efficiency is related to agricultural sector convergence. Can the authors elaborate more on that? Furthermore, why exactly these indices are used? How can we capture animal products in the indices selected?
4. Figures do not add anything to the article. They just contain 2-3 points – I would eliminate them.
5. In the discussion section, it would be good to compare results with previous studies cited.
6. The conclusions section is missing as well as little is said about future research possibilities.
Author Response
Response to Comments of Reviewer #2:
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for her/his supportive stance and the very constructive comments. The following text provides answers to the Reviewer’s comments and it reports the proper corrections.
The Reviewer’s comments are presented within a colored frame, whereas the answers are given within the frame starting with the statement “[Response/Correction Action]” and ending with the mark “[■]”
Please refer at the revised manuscript for the revised reference list.
1. First of all, the introduction and literature review sections are rather mixed. A better motivation behind writing about the topic together with the aim of the article and the description of article structure is needed in the introduction.
[Response/Correction Action]
The comment is reasonable, but we have followed the structure provided in the “guide for authors” of the journal which foresees only an introduction section where the major past studies and the scope of the paper should be described. In order to improve the structure of the Introduction we have inserted the following phrase (lines 63-67).
“The policy interventions opted for the liberalization of the global market which could assist also the less developed countries to cope with the high competition of the developed ones. Therefore, from an academic point of view, it is very interesting to evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions and test the convergence among the different countries of the globe towards a more efficient and thus sustainable agricultural sector.”
This addition comes after the description of the general policy context that drives the global structural changes and potential convergence in agriculture and introduces the literature review of the papers that have tested the convergence hypothesis in various contexts.
Moreover, the structure of the paper is now presented in the end of the Introduction section (lines 129-134)
“The remainder of the paper is as follows. In Section 2 the formation of the models and the variables incorporated in them are presented in detail. In Section 3 the results of the convergence analysis for the value, energy efficiency and crops productivity are presented. Finally, the paper ends up with a discussion section in which the contribution of the paper on the theory of sustainable agriculture is presented, some key policy insights are highlighted, and some future research challenges are presented.”
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2. As to the literature review, the following recent articles might also be useful to add:
Csaki Cs., Jambor A. (2019): Convergence or divergence – Transition in agriculture of Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States revisited. Agricultural Economics – Czech, 65: 160–174.
Henke, R., Benos, T., Filippis, F. de, Giua, M., Pierangeli, F. and D'Andrea, MRP. (2018): The New Common Agricultural Policy: Ηow do Member States Respond to Flexibility?, Journal of Common Market Studies, 56(2): 403-419.
[Response/Correction Action]
Thanks for these recommendations which indeed were very helpful and very relevant to the scope of our paper. The papers have been cited in relevant fields.
The methods and results of the first paper are discussed between lines 88-93
“Finally, Csaki and Jambor [18] have tested the convergence hypothesis between the EU-15 countries and a group consisting of countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The authors tested the convergence taking as a reference the partial productivity measures of land and labour production factors. The authors concluded that no real convergence has been observed over the period 1997-2016, whilst the performance gap remains larger for the Commonwealth of Independent States than for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.”
In addition, the 2nd paper is cited in lines 59-62 where the CAP reform is evaluated.
“According to Henke et al. [10] the new CAP reforms provided the countries with the flexibility to draw their own path towards the supporting of their agricultural sector and thus develop payments frameworks that could really enhance the sectoral competitiveness.”
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3. In terms of methodology, I do not see how energy efficiency is related to agricultural sector convergence. Can the authors elaborate more on that? Furthermore, why exactly these indices are used? How can we capture animal products in the indices selected?
[Response/Correction Action]
In general, the better energy performance coincides with the target of greener agriculture. Therefore, the developing countries should not only catch the technical efficiency levels of the more developed ones, but theyshouldalso start adopting more environmentally friendly agricultural practices. The rationale for selecting the energy efficiency together with the other indices are now better described within the lines 118-125
“This analysis focuses on three different aspects of agricultural performance, namely value generation, energy efficiency and productivity of various crops. These aspects are being described as indicators for assessing CAP performance on both performance and context levels [21]. All three of them are directly related to the sustainable use of production factors and natural resources, having as a target to improve operational performance of agricultural holdings, mitigating at the same time the production of undesirable outputs of the production process. In other words, as the improvement of operational performance arises as the major challenge of agriculture globally, this cannot be achieved without meeting specific environmental goals [7].”
As for the animal production, this is not captured by the present paper. We have used your comment in order to add an additional future research challenge (lines 429-430).
“Moreover, analysis should also focus on other production processes, mainly animal production, which were not considered by the present paper.”
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4. Figures do not add anything to the article. They just contain 2-3 points – I would eliminate them.
[Response/Correction Action]
The figures of CV for the first 2 indicators were removed and the CV values are now presented within the tables of the descriptive statistics. We kept the CV figure of the individual crops (indicator of productivity) as it provides a nice visual presentation of the CV trends across the different crops.
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5. In the discussion section, it would be good to compare results with previous studies cited
[Response/Correction Action]
Although almost mandatory for a research paper, we have avoided the comparison with previous studies due to incompatibility of methods and geographical context. Nevertheless, your point is right and now we provide some comparisons (lines 377-390) after indicating that these should be treated with caution.
“Since the paper had a quite differentiated methodological structure and geographical focus from the past similar studies, any results comparisons should be treated with caution. To this end, the value generation and the energy efficiency indicators cannot establish a basis for comparisons with past results. This should be only made on the basis of the productivity indicators. In geographical terms, the paper focus coincides with this of Coelli and Rao [11]. Given that a convergence trend was found for most of the crops assessed in the present paper, the results verify the findings of Coelli and Rao [11], who have indicated an improved performance of Asian and African countries which could lead to a global convergence. Moreover, an indirect comparison could be made with some papers employing the developed-developing countries assessment framework. To this end, the paper verifies the findings of Suhariyanto and Thirtle [12] who have observed that some groups of African countries systematically performed better than the Asian ones. Finally, it does not verify the findings of Csaki and Jambor [18] who have observed a lack of convergence between the developed countries of Europe and the less developed countries of former USSR in terms of land productivity.”
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6. The conclusions section is missing as well as little is said about future research possibilities
[Response/Correction Action]
Here we followed the guidelines of the journal to end up with a discussion section after results are presented. In addition, the future research is now extended (lines 417-434) considering also the remarks of the 3rd reviewer.
“Finally, the present paper is not free of weak points both in the methodology but also in the data used to extract the results. More precisely, the paper has shed light only on a part of the dimensions that shape the overall performance of the agricultural sector. Therefore, the effect of the policies on the capital and labor productivity as well as on other environmental outputs of the sector is not examined by the present study. Moreover, it should be noted that the paper relied on regression analysis to test the convergence hypothesis. This methodological setting provides insights of the average global trends but is not effective in highlighting the particularities of individual countries or group of countries. Therefore, the paper could be considered as a starting point for a more detailed analysis at the country level as it allows the assessment of performance of individual countries on par with the general global trend. In addition, more detailed examination of the convergence trends, using the club convergence hypothesis [22] as the basis for analysis could shed more light on the dynamics of global agriculture and across different types of countries such as the developed, developing and the less developed ones. Moreover, analysis should also focus on other production processes, mainly animal production, which were not considered by the present paper. Finally, additional policy frameworks should be used as benchmarks for future studies. Considering the complexity of the sector these policies should not only stem from the agricultural sector but also from wider domains, such as energy, environment and finance, as they clearly have an effect on the performance of agriculture.”
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Reviewer 3 Report
The topic of this paper is relevant, but the problem is that the author underemphasizes sustainability and sustainability-related effects of the three aspects of agricultural production discussed in the paper: value generation, energy efficiency, and productivity of crops. These links should be explained in the introduction, tracked in the results, and critically discussed in the discussion/conclusion.
The approach employed by the author looks promising, however, I consider it as too general - in terms of the number of countries included in the study, crops, and other parameters. Which countries are studied? Have the differences between developed, developing, and least-developed countries been considered? How the three aspects of agricultural productivity are chosen? How the crops are chosen? The effects of CAP reforms on the chosen parameters and, what is more important, on particular countries, are not emphasized too. All these questions need answers and explanations. The existing diversities between countries in terms of agricultural production, crops, economic efficiency, and other parameters have not been addressed in the methodology. The findings, consequently, are not applicable to particular countries, their contribution to the literature as well as potential implications are rather low.
Author Response
Response to Comments of Reviewer #3:
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for her/his constructive comments. We believe that the additions comply with the reviewer’s comments and we hope that she/he will appreciate the improvements made towards this direction.The following text provides answers to the Reviewer’s comments and it reports the proper corrections.
The Reviewer’s comments are presented within a colored frame, whereas the answers are given within the frame starting with the statement “[Response/Correction Action]” and ending with the mark “[■]”
Please refer at the revised manuscript for the revised reference list.
1. The topic of this paper is relevant, but the problem is that the author underemphasizes sustainability and sustainability-related effects of the three aspects of agricultural production discussed in the paper: value generation, energy efficiency, and productivity of crops. These links should be explained in the introduction, tracked in the results, and critically discussed in the discussion/conclusion.
[Response/Correction Action]
The comment is reasonable and thus we included some further discussion regarding the link of the selected indices on the sustainability of the agricultural sector.In the Introduction the following additions were made (lines 118-127).
“This analysis focuses on three different aspects of agricultural performance, namely value generation, energy efficiency and productivity of various crops. These aspects are being described as indicators for assessing CAP performance on both performance and context levels [21]. All three of them are directly related to the sustainable use of production factors and natural resources, having as a target to improve operational performance of agricultural holdings, mitigating at the same time the production of undesirable outputs of the production process. In other words, as the improvement of operational performance arises as the major challenge of agriculture globally, this cannot be achieved without meeting specific environmental goals [7]. By doing so, the analysis sheds light on how the policy interventions affected the various elements that shape the competitiveness of the agricultural sector and its overall ability to act as a catalyst for sustainable growth.”
Furthermore, based on the results the following lines have been added to the Discussion section (lines 363-376)
“Given the fact that in early nineties strategic and radical changes started taking place on both European and global level, the division of this time period into two sub-periods is essential. The major difference between them is that developed countries until 1992 were implementing agricultural policies characterized by increased protectionism, expressed by applying distorting trade measures and coupled subsidy schemes to specific cultivations [31]. The continuous CAP reforms, in collaboration with the Uruguay Round agreement, mitigated in the following years the negative impact of the previous policies and established homogenous policy approaches for both developed and developing countries. Therefore, the significance of assessing the convergence of crop production sector by using common indicators, which are being used for assessing policies’ performance too, is a novel approach tailored to the new status of agricultural production and trade. When convergence occurs, it signifies that horizontal policy approach is capable to improve the performance of the sector. When it does not, there is a signal that further, perhaps more tailored to specific needs, action required the same target to be achieved.”
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2. The approach employed by the author looks promising, however, I consider it as too general - in terms of the number of countries included in the study, crops, and other parameters. Which countries are studied?
[Response/Correction Action]
A description of the sample and the criteria behind its selection has now been added in the lines 220-224.
“It should be noted that the number of countries differ per specific indicator and their number is reported in the descriptive statistics tables of each indicator. The criteria for including the countries into the analysis is the data availability for the value generation and energy efficiency indicators and the constant production of output across the three years of analysis for the crop productivity indicator. The detailed list of countries for each indicator is available upon request to the authors.”
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3. Have the differences between developed, developing, and least-developed countries been considered? The effects of CAP reforms on the chosen parameters and, what is more important, on particular countries, are not emphasized too. All these questions need answers and explanations. The existing diversities between countries in terms of agricultural production, crops, economic efficiency, and other parameters have not been addressed in the methodology. The findings, consequently, are not applicable to particular countries, their contribution to the literature as well as potential implications are rather low.
[Response/Correction Action]
The methodological framework of the paper helps us having a macroscopic picture of the global convergence trends. The effectiveness of the policies mentioned in the Introduction is tested on a global basis. We therefore acknowledge that some countries may diverge from the general trend.Nevertheless, since regression concerns the average of a sample, individual records cannot be highlighted. This needs another methodological framework in order to be feasible. Moreover, in order to see how a country is doing we need to have the general trends as a benchmarking point. Therefore, the paper provides the general trends for any specific country researches to follow in the future.Theseremarks are now mentioned in the lines 167-170.
“Although, the regression models used for testing the convergence hypothesis cannot provide information for particular countries, they are still capable to provide the global average trends and therefore provide an evaluation of the policies’ effectiveness which is the basic motivation behind the present paper.”
In addition, they are furtherly discussed in the lines 422-429.
“This methodological setting provides insights of the average global trends but is not effective in highlighting the particularities of individual countries or group of countries. Therefore, the paper could be considered as a starting point for a more detailed analysis at the country level as it allows the assessment of performance of individual countries on par with the general global trend. In addition, more detailed examination of the convergence trends, using the club convergence hypothesis [22] as the basis for analysis could shed more light on the dynamics of global agriculture and across different types of countries such as the developed, developing and the less developed ones.”
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4. How the crops are chosen?
[Response/Correction Action]
The rationale of the crops’ selection is now described in lines 192-196.
“More precisely, the analysis focuses on different types of crops, namely cereals, coarse grains, pulses, vegetables and fruits. These types of cultivations represent in an adequate context the crop production of each country. Moreover, their selection was based on the fact the FAO [30] provides relevant data that covers the time needs of the present paper.”
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Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been improved, most of the recommendations and suggestions have been considered and answered. The paper, however, must be concluded with a separate Conclusion section, where the author summarizes the results, emphasizes the contribution and implicatin of the findings, and explains existing limitations and future research directions. The text needs proofreading to improve the style and grammar
Author Response
Response to Comments of Reviewer #3:
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for acknowledging our effort to improve our manuscript. We believe that the 2nd revision complies with the reviewer’s additional comments and we hope that she/he will appreciate the improvements made towards this direction. The following text provides answers to the Reviewer’s comments and it reports the proper corrections.
The Reviewer’s comments are presented within a colored frame, whereas the answers are given within the frame starting with the statement “[Response/Correction Action]” and ending with the mark “[■]”
Please refer at the revised manuscript for the revised reference list.
1. The paper, however, must be concluded with a separate Conclusion section, where the author summarizes the results, emphasizes the contribution and implication of the findings, and explains existing limitations and future research directions.
[Response/Correction Action]
A conclusions section has been added and the relevant adjustments has also been done to the description of the paper’s structure at the end of the Introduction section.
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2. The text needs proofreading to improve the style and grammar
[Response/Correction Action]
An extended proofreading has been done in order to improve the style and the grammar as well as some typos of the paper.
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