Economics of Agribusiness

Agribusiness is an important economic sector. It includes primary agriculture, food processing industries, and input-delivering industries. This course provides a description and analysis of economic behaviour of actors in agribusiness. The linkages between economic actors through national and international markets and through other co-ordination mechanisms such as contracts receive special attention. Microeconomic and institutional theories are the basis for description and analysis. Important subjects are: position of agribusiness within the economy, firm and consumer behaviour, investment, markets of food products, co-ordination mechanisms and imperfect competition in agribusiness, organisation of food production (e.g. family farms), agricultural and environmental policies and regional and international trade in food products. After this course you better understand economic phenomena as nitrogen crisis, future markets, oligopolies, EU policy and family farms in agriculture.

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:

• Reproduce economic descriptions and theories that are relevant for agribusiness
• Solve and interpret the results of microeconomic exercises on agribusiness
• Analyse behaviour of agents in agribusiness
• Explain economic phenomena using economic and institutional theory

Assumed Knowledge:
Mathematics at the level of MAT12806 Mathematics M (Mathematics for Social Sciences); UEC10406 Microeconomics and Behaviour.