Eva IEREMIAS¹, Tibor TARNÓCZI²

¹Károly Ihrig Doctoral School of Management and Business, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

²Institute of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

evi.ieremias@yahoo.com

tibor.tarnoczi@econ.unideb.hu

Abstract: Performance measurement is essential in all sectors of the national economies. Still, it is especially true for agriculture, as more efficient farming is becoming increasingly important to provide the population with adequate food.

The study examines the performance of Hungarian agricultural companies in Romania. There were selected a total of 5,390 companies for the analysis database, of which 3,789 were from Romania and 1,601 from Hungary. In the performance analysis, the efficiency of companies was examined between 2018 and 2020 using the Data Envelopment Analysis method.

Based on the results, it can be concluded that Romanian agricultural companies operate with statistically significantly lower efficiency. However, it can also be seen that the average efficiency of businesses is very low considering both countries.

Low performance is also observed considering the averages of the sub-sector efficiency coefficients. There is not a single year in which the average efficiency coefficient in any sector exceeds 50%. On the other hand, the Oilseed and Grain Farming sub-sector analysis shows that the proportion of companies with an efficiency coefficient below 50% is very high, especially in Romania. Similar findings can be made for the Poultry and Egg Production subsector.

Further research is needed to explore the causes of low efficiencies of agriculture companies more accurately.

Keywords: agriculture; efficiency; Data Envelopment Analysis, Romania and Hungary

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