Economic effects of reorganising an agro-food supply chain: some evidence from Poland

Аннотация

Much has been said about the nature of the agro-food supply chain. Yet, the consequences of reforming supply chain institutions have less often been studied, especially from an empirical perspective. The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic consequences of a radical reorganisation of the system of exchange in the agro-food sector in Central and Eastern Europe, during the process of transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. By considering a historical example from the dairy sector in Poland, the author provides evidence that the disorganisation of vertical linkages between upstream and downstream producers can be very costly. The most conservative estimates suggest that the dislocation of inter-firm relationships accounted for approximately 20 per cent of the drop in milk production observed in the early-transition phase in question.