Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Resource Economics

KATO

Comparative Analysis of the Transition Process of the Agricultural Sector in Selected Central and Eastern European Countries

Start: 06/1997
End: 03/2002
 

The KATO Research Project was oriented towards a profound theoretical and empirical analysis of institutional change in three research areas, i.e. (1) liberalization of markets, (2) privatization of land and non-land assets, and (3) restructuring and reorganization of farms. These research topics were investigated in the agricultural sectors of three transition countries: Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. The process of research focused on (a) the empirical design for analyzing rapidly changing and evolving institutions in transition economies, (b) the suitability of different theoretical approaches for understanding transition, and (c) policy recommendations targeting better governance and an improved institutional framework. The Project did not only aim at research objectives, but also pursued an educational objective, which was to train twelve junior researchers from Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Germany. Academic training was organized jointly as an “East-West-Ph.D. Program,” that proved to be very fruitful, stimulating a profitable exchange of knowledge and an intensive process of learning.


Researcher:

Volker Beckmann, Silke Boger, Markus Brem, Dorota Czerwinska-Kayzer, Jarmila Curtiss, Markus Hanisch, Marketa Johnova, Krassimira Kaneva, Dominika Milczarek, Ferdinand Pavel, Achim Schlüter and Sabine Zillmer

Project Partners:

Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland
Posnan Agricultural University, Posnan, Poland
Plovdiv Agricultural University, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Czech Agricultural University Prague-Suchdol, Czech Republic

Lead: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Konrad Hagedorn

Funding: Volkswagen Foundation
                (uni-protokolle.de)