Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Introduction
V
´
tor Jo
˜
o Pereira Domingues Martinho
This publication is intended to be a contribution (considering approaches among
many others) towards the understanding of the evolution of agricultural economics
over recent years and around the world. In this way we analyzed several variables
related to the economic performance of the farming sector and associated to it the
relationship between agriculture and other sectors, the dynamics of rural areas,
multifunctional aspects, the environment, and sustainability.
This handbook was divided, apart from this first chapter for the introduction and
the last chapter for the conclusion, into nine more chapters that investigate these
questions in the European Union, USA, BRICS countries, and in Portugal. In the
following paragraphs what was intended and considered in each one of the nine
chapters will be outlined.
Beginning with the second chapter, in this part of the handbook, the aim was to
analyze the interrelation between the agricultural output and other variables asso-
ciated with it, in the context of the USA, from 1961 to 2012, with data from the
World Bank, using time series econometric instruments, through the Stata software
and taking into account the Cobb-Douglas function of production in a linear format
as a base model.
The third chapter analyzes the performance of some variables related to agri-
cultural economics in the former twenty seven European Union countries and their
influence in the agricultural production, with statistical data that was obtained via
European Union statistics, for the period 1973-2013, that were analyzed though
cross-sectional estimations and with spatial econometric instruments, considering
the GeoDa software.
The performance of the manufacturing sector, was the objective in the fourth
chapter, namely that based on agriculture and fishery, in the first 27 countries of the
European Union, through the Verdoorn law extended with new variables (the wages
