Files
Abstract
On the verge of EU accession, Poland’s agricultural sector is characterised by a
number of distinct structural weaknesses, which are a major reason for the unsatisfactory
income situation of rural households. Among these weaknesses are that
farm productivity is substantially below EU standards, investment has performed
much weaker as compared with the overall Polish economy, and structural
change has been very small. It has been suggested that credit access is a
crucial factor for overcoming these undesired outcomes. Furthermore, the Polish
government massively intervenes on rural credit markets, in particular by granting
subsidies on working capital and investment loans for agriculture. Against
this background, the aim of the present research is to discover how far potential
deficiencies on rural credit markets can be made responsible for the structural
weaknesses of the Polish farm sector and thereby provide an economic rationale
for government activity.
Central to the analysis is the notion of credit rationing. This notion abounds in
the recent literature on credit market problems, although it is not used in a uniform
way. In this monograph, credit rationing is understood to indicate a situation
of persistent private excess demand for credit. The subsequent theoretical
and empirical analysis explores how far this concept can be made fruitful for the
understanding of the Polish rural credit market and the effects of governmental
intervention.
The major findings of the study can be summarised as follows:
1. The theoretical investigation of credit markets sets out that credit rationing is
by definition excluded in the traditional neoclassical market model, whereas
it is a likely outcome on markets with asymmetric information. However,
theory does not provide unambiguous propositions regarding the welfare assessment
of credit rationing. Since the presence of asymmetric information
cancels the functioning of the price mechanism, the traditional concepts of
social efficiency are no longer valid. As a consequence, credit rationing does
not necessarily imply underinvestment, and it generally does not create a case
for straightforward government policy. It seems therefore reasonable to analytically
decouple the analysis of credit rationing and under- or overinvestment.
The subsequent analysis in this monograph focused on the first of
these.
2. The extent to which asymmetric information has harmful effects on investment
outcomes is shown to depend on the availability of counteracting arrangements, such as collateral, joint liability, or reputation of borrowers. The
way in which governments can improve on these instruments will play a decisive
role for successful policy action. Any intervention measures should
consider the conditions and causes that are responsible for an undesirable
market outcome, in case that this has been successfully identified.
3. In the framework of a two-period farm household model, the consequences
of introducing a binding credit constraint are examined. The market interest
rate loses its relevance for the household internal allocation of funds and is
replaced by an endogenous, unobservable shadow interest rate. Compared
with a first-best world without credit rationing, the household will reduce
output, which implies a loss of income. An increase in government transfers
relaxes the liquidity constraint and thus has positive effects on farm output.
In a multi-period household model with endogenous equity formation, credit
rationing has the effect that investment cannot immediately attain its optimal
level. The household thus reduces current consumption in favour of equity
formation.
4. The presence of a perfect capital market allows the convenient separation of
production or investment decisions on the one hand and consumption decisions
on the other. Both farm household models suggest that this cannot be
maintained under a binding credit constraint. As a consequence, there is no
objective criterion anymore which allows to assess the (private) efficiency of
input use or investment activities. Both decision complexes can only be made
simultaneously with the household’s consumption plan and are thus affected
by the household’s preferences. Any empirical production or investment
analysis has to take these interdependencies into account.
5. In a reflection on economic methodology, it is argued that econometrics cannot
be the fundamental benchmark for the falsification of theories. The methodological
standpoint of critical rationalism should therefore be left behind
and be replaced by a more pragmatic and instrumentalist position. The empirical
results of the present study are primarily based on a regression analysis
of cross-sectional survey data, which includes qualitative and quantitative
indicators of credit rationing.
6. According to statements of farmers made during the survey, 80 percent of
farm households took at least one loan in the reporting period 1997-1999.
Almost half of the borrowers obtained less credit than desired and are hence
regarded as credit-rationed. Central determinants of credit rationing are the
reputation of the loan applicant as well as demographic household characteristics. Over all loan types, respondents with a good credit history have a 30
percentage points lower probability of being rationed than borrowers who rescheduled
a loan in the past. In addition, more adult males in the household
decrease the probability of being credit-rationed, while more females increase
it. If only short-term borrowing is considered, collateral availability is
an additional key factor of credit rationing.
7. The econometric analysis of output supply supports the earlier finding that
more than 40 percent of borrowers experienced pronounced credit rationing
by rural banks. These farms display a marginal willingness to pay for credit
of on average 209 percent net of principal. The willingness to pay is significantly
different from individual interest rates for credit that account for loan
specific transaction costs. These individual interest rates are 13 percent per
annum on average. Transaction costs, however, do not ex-post rationalise a
withdrawal of loan applications and cannot be regarded as the ultimate cause
of perceived credit rationing. In the group of credit-rationed farms, household
characteristics are proven to have a significant effect on output supply. This
is evidence for a violation of separability between production and consumption
decisions and thus lends empirical support to the existence of a market
imperfection. A counterfactual model estimated on all short-term credit recipients
demonstrates that the willingness to pay is substantially higher for
rationed than for non-rationed farm households.
8. An ex-post evaluation of investment activities suggests that non-productive
investment rank high on the priority list of interviewed farmers. Residential
buildings and automobile purchases are the two items with the largest share
of farm-individual investment expenses in the reporting period. The econometric
investment analysis demonstrates that credit access is a significant factor
of investment decisions of credit-rationed farmers. This supports the theoretical
prediction of a financial constraint model of investment behaviour and
is consistent with the qualitative self-classification of respondents. Furthermore,
the analysis substantiates the evidence that subsidised credit funds are
partly diverted to non-productive purposes. In various specifications of the
credit-investment relationship, the marginal effect of credit on productive investment
is clearly smaller than one. Based on a cubic Tobit estimate of the
investment function, the mean of the farm-individual marginal effects is at
.53 on average. Every second borrower invests less in productive assets than
he borrows. Only 1.6 percent of the selected respondents with positive investment
display farm-individual credit effects larger than one. Over the observed
range of credit volumes, the marginal effect increases with an increasing credit volume. However, the results do not support the view that investment
is positively related to farm size.
In summary, the analysis provides evidence that credit rationing is a relevant
phenomenon in rural Poland. A significant fraction of borrowers could substantially
increase their productivity if access to working capital were improved.
However, the examination of long-term loans revealed that farmers often prefer
the investment in non-productive assets to growth investment. Credit rationing
hence is unlikely to be the ultimate constraint for modernisation and structural
change in the Polish farm sector.
Government intervention in its current form has clearly failed to eliminate credit
rationing, and the targeting of state sponsored funds turns out to be rather dubious.
An alternative government policy should aim to improve the general creditworthiness
of prospective borrowers and address the causes of loan default in
the past that led to a poor reputation of certain borrowers. Policy action that improves
the access to working capital should be given priority. One of the potential
side-effects of the introduction of direct payments under the CAP could be
to relax exactly this constraint on working capital for currently credit-rationed
farm households.
Beyond a further integration of theory and empirics in the area of New Institutional
Economics, an important focus of future research should be the development
of analytical tools for practical policy advice on markets with pervasive
agency relations. With regard to Poland, political aspects of governmental credit
market intervention as well as a more comprehensive analysis of the determinants
of structural change in the farming sector appear to be promising research
fields.