A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Vantomme, Katharina Research Report Labour rationing of different farm types in Kazakhstan: A shadow price analysis Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, No. 88 Provided in Cooperation with: Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale) Suggested Citation: Vantomme, Katharina (2017) : Labour rationing of different farm types in Kazakhstan: A shadow price analysis, Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, No. 88, ISBN 978-3-95992-043-8, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale), http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-86093 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/172796 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists the publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at: http://dnb.ddb.de. This thesis was accepted as a doctoral dissertation in fulfillment of the require- ments for the degree "doctor agriculturarum" by the Faculty of Natural Sciences III at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg on 23.02.2016. Date of oral examination: 27.06.2016 Supervisor and Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Martin Petrick Co-Reviewer: Dr. habil. Jürgen Wandel Diese Veröffentlichung kann kostenfrei im Internet unter <www.iamo.de/dok/sr_vol88pdf> heruntergeladen werden. This publication can be downloaded free from the website <www.iamo.de/dok/sr_vol88pdf>. ã 2017 Leibniz-Institut für Agrarentwicklung in Transformationsökonomien (IAMO) Theodor-Lieser-Straße 2 06120 Halle (Saale) Tel.: 49 (345) 2928-0 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.iamo.de ISSN 1436-221X ISBN 978-3-95992-43-8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the outcome of several years of work at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development (IAMO) in the department "External Environment for Agriculture and Policy Analysis". However, without the support and encoura- gement of many people the successful finishing of the thesis would not have been possible. Thus, finally the time has come to say thank you to all those that contributed in different ways to this thesis. Firstly, my deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Martin Petrick, who gave me the chance to work on my PhD at IAMO. Furthermore, I would like to thank him very much for his guidance, always constructive comments as well as his intellectual and moral support. Besides, I am very grateful for all the time he sacrificed to read, comment and discuss my thesis. I really learnt a lot. Next, I would like to thank Dr. habil. Jürgen Wandel for investing his time as second advisor. I appreciate it very much. Moreover, I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Thomas Herzfeld as well as my colleagues from the RAP department for a cooperative, supportive and motivating atmosphere in "our" department. I enjoyed very much to be part of it. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dr. Andreas Gramzow, Dauren Oshakbayev and Aman Suleimenov and the other members of Acepas in Astana for having welcomed us and for having provided very interesting and useful information on agriculture in Kazakhstan during my first study visit to Kazakhstan. Besides, spe- cial thanks go to the World Bank and Dr. Karin Fock in particular, for allowing us to use their questionnaires and data from 2003 and for helpful advice for the data collection. Moreover, I am grateful to Bisam Central Asia and the interviewers for having carried out the data collection in a professional way and for letting me join it. I really learnt a lot. Besides, special thanks to Ms Mewes for her constant support, especially in ad- ministrative and organizational matters, but also in personal issues as well as to the entire administration department for their help and support. Apart from that, I would like to point out that I cannot imagine how life in Halle and work at IAMO would have been without my colleagues, who provided not only a friendly, productive and supportive working atmosphere, but of whom many became my friends, too. I could not have imagined life without you and without many other friends from Halle. ii Acknowledgements Last but not least, I would like to express my infinite gratitude to my husband and my family for their love, unlimited support and patience. SUMMARY After the breakdown of the Soviet Union many socioeconomic, but also demo- graphic changes took place in Kazakhstan. The large collective farms have partly been broken up. The result was a tri-partitioned farm structure with agricultural enterprises including agroholdings, individual farms as well as household farms. Furthermore, a strong exodus especially from northern Kazakhstan took place, which included many skilled workers, leading to a scarcity of labour and to mis- matches between skills offered and skills needed in agriculture. However, the potential of the Kazakh agriculture cannot be fully tapped without suitable labour. Thus, at present low productivity prevail. Therefore, a central term of the dissertation is the term "labour rationing". An agricultural unit is labour rationing if it is not able to find enough suitable workers even though it would be willing to pay a higher wage than the real wage. This dissertation focused on investiga- ting labour rationing in the rural areas of Kazakhstan using two cross-sectional farm level data sets from 2003 and 2011 with data collected in the two oblasts, Akmola and Almaty. Besides, the production model under factor constraint was applied. From this model the shadow price analysis was derived with help of the Lagrangian method. Three Heckman models, for 2003, 2011 as well as for 2003 and 2011 together were estimated as well as the respective shadow prices of the different farm types. The latter were then compared with the real wages. All farm types faced an excess demand for labour. However, agroholdings suffered from the strongest labour rationing and thus, had most problem finding suitable wor- kers, skilled workers in particular. Regarding the reasons for labour rationing, the analysis suggests mainly the following: • In 2011, agricultural producers that carried out joint activity with other ag- ricultural units were less likely to be labour rationed than those that did not carry out any joint activity together with others. • Agricultural units with a peripheral and poorly connected location were more likely to be rationed on the labour market. Moreover, in Akmola ob- last labour shortages were more severe than in Almaty oblast. • Regarding the value of machinery and movable equipment, it can be said that these factors normally rather attract workers, especially in Kazakhstan. However, in order to operate more sophisticated machinery more skills are needed. But skilled workers were particularly scarce. iv Summary • Regarding education it cannot be clearly observed that more educated managers have fewer problems or more problems finding workers in Ka- zakhstan. Finally, it can be said that according to the data wages in agriculture in Kazakh- stan did rise if 2003 and 2011 are compared, but so did the shadow wages. Thus, an excess demand for labour and the problem of labour rationing persist. Never- theless, it seems that the labour productivity increased which might be due to investments in machinery. At the same time this means that especially skilled workers are in demand. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion fanden in Kasachstan nicht nur viele sozio- ökonomische Umbrüche,