The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between size and farm growth. The existing theories of the association between size and farm growth give mixed results by countries and over time. This paper pursues a twofold objective: on one hand, to test the validity of Gibrat’s Law for French, Hungarian and Slovenian specialized dairy and crop farms during the pre- and post-accession period to the European Union membership. Dairy and crops farms are prevailing in the farming structure of these countries. Using Farm Accountancy Data Network datasets makes it necessary to avoid biases due to heterogeneous structures across the farming systems. Thus we use quantile regressions to control for farm size related heterogeneity in the samples. On the other hand, the main novelty of this paper is the comparative analysis of the relationship between farm size and farm growth between transition Hungarian and Slovenian and non-transition French farming sectors, characterized by rather different farm structures. The results reject the validity of Gibrat’s Law for crop farms in Hungary and to a lesser extent in France, and for French and Slovenian dairy farms. We provide evidence that smaller farms grew faster than larger ones over the studied period 2001-2007 for France, 2001-2008 for Hungary, and 2004-2008 for Slovenia. Conversely, the results for Slovenia suggest that the rate of growth of crop farms in terms of its land is independent from its size.

"The structure of Hungary's food trade expansion over the period 1995-2003 and its implications for labour market adjustment are examined. The contributions of the paper are threefold. First, we test the sensitivity of results to the choice of measurement and their implications for the results. Second, we introduce more industry-specific control variables. Third, we distinguish the short- and long-run adjustment effects. Our results provide some support for the smooth-adjustment hypothesis of intra-industry trade. Estimations confirm that industry-specific variables may have a significant effect on adjustment costs." Copyright (c) 2009 The Author. Journal compilation (c) 2009 The Agricultural Economics Society.

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Th e paper investigates the innovation process in the Hungarian agri-food sector using the concept of open innovation. Th e empirical analysis is based on the data from a 2011 survey of more than 200 small and medium size agricultural producers, food processors and retailers. Th ere is determined the impact of open innovation and a company's absorptive capacity on the innovation performance employing two stage approaches. First, a cluster analysis is applied to categorise companies based on their open innovation absorptive capacity, fi rm and managerial characteristics. Second, using semi--non parametric probit models, there is found that open innovation positively infl uences the innovation performance for the product and market innovation. Estimations indicate that the absorptive capacity has positive impacts on the technological-and organisational innovation and on innovation propensity. Th e results suggest that there exists a considerable heterogeneity both within and between the supply chain segments regarding to the innovation performance.

Krause J., Machek O. (2018): A comparative analysis of organic and conventional farmers in the Czech Republic. Agric. Econ. -Czech, 64: 1-8. Abstract:Organic farming has become a topic that receives an increasing academic as well as popular attention. Th is study examines the fi nancial diff erences between the organic and conventional farmers, as well as their income volatility. Based on the Student's t-test, the regression analysis and the matched-pair investigation on a sample of Czech 291 organic and 4045 conventional farmers over the period 2009-2013, the study indicates that the organic agricultural companies outperform the conventional companies in the terms of profi tability. However, their asset turnover is considerably lower. No evidence of diff erent income volatility has been found.