RESEARCH PAPER
RISK AVERSION AND PROFITABILITY OF PRODUCTION FACTORS – THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL APPROACH
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Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego
Acceptance date: 2014-12-08
Publication date: 2014-12-08
Zagadnienia Ekonomiki Rolnej / Problems of Agricultural Economics 2014;341(4):87-105
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ABSTRACT
In the paper, an attempt to investigation the relation between farmers’ attitude towards risk and profitability of production’ factors has been undertaken. A resource-based theory of the firm underlines that the competitive advantage of the firm comes from owned resources. According to neoclassical economic theory, rational use of resources is associated with maximizing economic results, however under risk and uncertainty achieving such objective seems to be a difficult task (in terms of practical economic life). The main problem is risk aversion which comes from imperfect information. The risk aversion makes the decision – makers devote some inputs (part of resources) for risk reduction, what hypothetically leads to worse economic performance. Such point of view is coherent with a so-called state-contingent approach and theory of expected utility. The research revealed that in the case of crop and mix farms higher risk aversion is related with lower level of resources’ profitability. The opposite situation was observed in specialized livestock farms.