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The Russian agri-food sector illustrated remarkable progress over the last decade. Still, the Russian government is striving to boost production even further and has set a number of goals for the industry for the coming years. Agroholdings are believed to be the main engine not only behind the success of the industry in recent years, but they are also expected to play a key role in moving the sector towards the set targets. In spite of their increasing role, the literature on agroholdings is still in its infancy and it fails to provide a clear answer on whether they represent a more efficient form of agri-food production. To fill this gap in the literature, we utilise a manually collected panel data set of 203 corporate Russian agri-food enterprises for the years between 2012 and 2017 and provide new empirical evidence on the effects of agroholding affiliation on firms’ financial performance, measured in terms of returns on assets and sales. The results of the random effects model indicate a significant positive impact of agroholding affiliation on financial performance. Further analysis reveals that this positive effect might be attributed to agroholding affiliates’ better access to capital, efficient management and stimulating executive compensation systems. The paper provides empirical recommendations for policy makers and corporate executives involved in the Russian agri-food industry.

Session ID 4830, Paper# 19254

This article provides pioneering empirical evidence on the ownership structure and firm performance relationship for the case of corporate agri-food companies in Russia. While Russia plays a vital role in the global agri-food system, its domestic agri-food production is evidently dominated by a small number of corporate enterprises, which are in turn characterized by high ownership concentration. We employ unique panel data obtained from 203 companies for the years between 2012 and 2017. A random effects model was used to analyze the impacts of ownership concentration and ownership identity on the firms��� financial performance, measured by return on assets and return on sales. Our results indicate an inverse U-shaped association between ownership concentration and firm performance, with average level of ownership concentration found to be on the descending range of the inverse U-shaped curve. Moreover, we observe a similar quadratic relationship between ownership concentration by government and directors and firm performance. On average, ownership by directors was found to be on the ascending range and below the peak point, suggesting a potential for further performance improvement, while the impact of agroholding ownership was found to be linear and positive.

This study provides pioneering empirical evidence on board gender diversity and firm performance relationship for the case of large-scale agri-food companies in Russia. While Russia plays an important role in the global food security, its domestic agri-food production is heavily dependent on large scale producers. Our findings suggest a strong positive link between the percentage of female directors in boardrooms and firm performance. Moreover, in line with critical mass theory, boards with three or more female directors have greater impact on firm performance compared to boards with two or less female directors. Further analysis shows that the presence of female directors in the company has a positive impact on firm performance, mainly due to their executive, rather than monitoring effects. The paper shed light on gender diversity of Russian corporate boardrooms and provides empirical recommendations for policy makers as well as corporate executives in Russia.

Die gegenwärtige Dürresituation in Deutschland entwickelte sich in diesem Sommer zu einem der meistdiskutierten Themen und merkliche Ernteeinbußen werden in der Landwirtschaft erwartet. Während Dürren in Deutschland erst jetzt in den Fokus der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung gerückt sind, leiden Landwirte in Osteuropa oder Zentralasien schon seit mehr als einer Dekade an sich häufenden Dürreereignissen. Zur geeigneten Anpassung der Landwirtschaft an Extremwettereignisse, besteht ein zunehmender Bedarf an modernen Risikomanagementinstrumenten. Hier bieten sich durch digitale Technologien vielfältige innovative Voraussetzungen für ein effektives Risikomanagement. Deutschland besitzt beste Voraussetzungen für Anwendung digitaler Technologien zur Unterstützung marktbasierter Risikoinstrumente, wie etwa Dürreversicherungen. Entsprechend sollten Anreize für moderne marktorientierte Formen des Risikomanagements gesetzt werden, so dass Landwirte nicht von Hilfszahlungen in Dürrezeiten abhängig sind.

Agriculture plays an important role for Kazakhstan not only because of rural employment, but also because of the diversity it brings to its oil dependent economy. A considerable increase in grain exports was achieved during the recent years, however, there still is a large room for increasing productivity and efficiency to boost the agricultural potential of the country further. The government of Kazakhstan has introduced several policy packages in the past to boost productivity and efficiency, however, the impact of these reforms has not been yet analyzed quantitatively. Micro level data collected from 200 farms in northern Kazakhstan in 2015 is used in the analysis, in order to fill this research gap. A mixture of evidences is found in terms of policy effect on productivity and efficiency. The results of the analysis showed that direct subsidy access reduced the efficiency, while access to supply chain infrastructure had the opposite effect and increased the efficiency. Therefore, the study concludes that the government should divert its policy support from direct subsidy payments to the improvement of agricultural infrastructure. This will influence positively not only productivity and efficiency, but also Kazakhstan's commitments towards international and regional trade agreements. In Kasachstan spielt die Landwirtschaft nicht nur als Arbeitgeber im ländlichen Raum eine wichtige Rolle, sondern diese trägt auch zur Diversifizierung der stark von Ölexporten abhängigen Ökonomie bei. Gerade die Getreideexporte haben in den letzten Jahren einen starken Anstieg verzeichnet. Jedoch gibt es noch Möglichkeiten das landwirtschaftliche Potenzial des Landes weiter auszuschöpfen. Die Regierung Kasachstans hat in den letzten Jahren mit einem ganzen Bündel an politischen Maßnahmen versucht, landwirtschaftliche Produktivität und Effizienz zu steigern. Die Wirksamkeit dieser Maßnahmen ist bisher noch nicht quantitativ analysiert worden. Um diese Forschungslücke zu schließen, wurden 200 landwirtschaftliche Betriebe in Nordkasachstan im Jahr 2015 befragt. Die quantitative Analyse der Daten zeigt, dass sich der direkte Zugang zu Subventionen negativ auf die Effizienz auswirkt, wohingegen der Zugang zu Lieferketteninfrastruktur sich effizienzsteigernd auswirkt. Daraus läßt sich als Politikempfehlung ableiten, dass die Regierung sich weniger auf direkte Subventionszahlungen, als vielmehr auf die Verbesserung der landwirtschaftlichen Infrastruktur konzentrieren sollte. Dies wird sich positiv nicht nur auf Produktivität und Effizienz, sondern auch auf die Verpflichtungen des Landes gegenüber internationalen und regionalen Handelsabkommen auswirken.

The selected paper presented at the IAMO Samarkand Conference