Technological Progress in Croatian Non-Perennial Agriculture

Croatian agriculture stagnates over the last quarter of the century. Although it is heavily subsidized and the investment in mechanization was high, Croatian agriculture did not improve its production level, not even after the accession to the European Union. The project of green and blue Croatia, which aim is to connect agricultural production and tourism, did not show significant results import substitution. In this paper non-perennial crops agriculture is analyzed since it forms more than 40% of total agricultural production in Croatia. In order to distinguish the contribution of capital, labour and total factor productivity, a Cobb-Douglas production function is estimated on a panel data set for Croatian non-perennial agriculture in the period of 2008 – 2014. It was discovered that production elasticities do not correspond to the shares of expenditures on labour and capital which is a common production function assumption. Also, it is shown that total factor productivity declines over time, a disinvestment and labour decline caused stagnation of this sector of Croatian economy. A further analysis is made to determine the impact of subsidies and export orientation on TFP and it is found that Croatian agricultural production is affected by export orientation and subsidies, but their impact is almost irrelevant.