Labour adjustment in agriculture: Assessing the heterogeneity across transition countries

A standard model of labour adjustment in times of economic transition assumes a constant impact of variables like sectoral income differences, unemployment or the relative size of the agricultural sector. This paper shows for a panel of 29 European and Asian transition countries that the standard model fails to take the heterogeneity of determinants of sectoral labour adjustment properly into account. A random coefficients model reveals quite heterogeneous influences of the intersectoral income ratio, the relative size of agricultural employment, the unemployment rate, and the general level of economic development on a measure of sectoral labour adjustment across transition countries. Moreover, for selected determinants the estimated coefficients show opposing signs.