Structural change in agriculture

The general aim of this thesis is to improve the understanding of structural change in the agricultural sector. The specific objectives are manifold, whereby each chapter contributes to a specific aim, and can be partitioned as follows. Starting from a sectoral perspective, the policy-induced structural adjustments are addressed. Structural change is a complex interaction of dynamic porcesses; thus, this thesis continues at the aggregate level to investigate farm entry, growth and exit over time. The intention is to quantify the impacts of agricultural policy regime shifts on the evolution of structure. The use of aggregated share data limits the insights into the dynamic processes characterizing structural change. In view of that, the analysis shifts towards a micro perspective exploring investment behavior at the farm level. Given the highly regulated agricultural markets in the EU and the common policy over the past few decades, an intensive dataase is available. This is essential for quantitative analyses and makes research of structural change in agriculture intereseting from a scientific point of view. By means of these results considerable advances in the understanding of structural change are expected.