مکانیسم های تامین تجهیزات و ظهور ساختار جدید دولت در CEECs: شواهد از صنعت الکل بلغاری

During transition, Bulgaria witnessed the dismantling of communist agri-food supply channels and a weakening of contract enforcement mechanisms. Wineries have had to establish grape procurement and purchasing relationships with a more diverse set of growers and intermediaries. In an attempt to overcome the weaknesses of procurement via spot markets, they have sought more interdependent contractual forms that secure greater control over the quality of inputs and minimise the possibility of opportunistic behaviour. The desired option by wineries is complete backward integration but attempts to achieve this have been limited by fragmented land ownership, credit constraints and incomplete property rights.

During the communist period, agri-food chains in Central and East European Countries (CEECs) were strongly vertically co-ordinated and monopsonistic structures secured contractual enforcement. Subsequent agricultural restructuring led to a decline in output, decapitalisation of both the up- and downstream sectors and processors suffered from the disruption to conventional marketing channels and a weakening of contractual and legal enforcement mechanisms. Reform specific factors such as the cessation of state support to agricultural producers, painfully slow land restitution, atomisation of production structures and a slow process of privatisation and liquidation have resulted in a number of distortions in the functioning of supply channels (Jackson and Swinnen, 1995; Swinnen and Gow, 1999). While the interrelationships between input suppliers, wine producers and buyers have become increasingly important in the international wine industry (Walker, 2001), in Bulgaria their counterparts are still finding their way in structural adjustment. Due to the weaknesses of the post-communist Bulgarian economy and the collapse of former COMECON markets, producers have attempted to re-direct a significant part of their production to more lucrative EU markets (Davidova et al., 1994). However this strategy was unsuccessful in the 1990s as Bulgaria suffered from a decline in its share of international wine markets. For example, until 1993 Bulgaria was the most important non-member supplier of wines to the EU (both in volume and value terms). However, by 1999 Bulgaria accounted for just 2.4% of the EU wine market by volume, which was less than the shares of the USA, South Africa and Chile. In the same year, Bulgaria's share of the market in value terms was only 1.3%, relegating it to ninth place in the list of most important non-member suppliers to the EU (Zaharieva, 2003). The discrepancy between volume and value shares also indicates that, on average, Bulgarian wines have much lower unit values. Quality inconsistency has been a major factor in this decline (National Vine and Wine-Making Chamber, 2000). The Bulgarian Wine Industry (BWI) is taken as a case study to provide an understanding of how the post-communist restructuring of markets and firms has created problems of supply chain governance and how processors have attempted to deal with failure in grape procurement markets. The study employs transaction cost theory (TCT) to analyse procurement problems between wine producers and grape growers and the motives for contractual innovation in an uncertain environment of emerging markets and imperfectly developed legal institutions. It highlights a divergence between theoretical predictions and the types of purchasing arrangements witnessed. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications for both wine producers and policy makers.

During transition, the previous public enforcement mechanisms of central planning were replaced by arrangements between new market actors. The establishment of effective private purchasing arrangements has proved to be problematic. Transition related factors led to weakening of credible contractual arrangements and a fall in total output and quality. The demise of central planning has increased the variety of institutional forms through which wine producers transact but both purchases in open markets and contractual relationships demonstrate weaknesses. Vertical integration is preferred due to perceived lower production costs and to minimise opportunistic behaviour. However attempts to backwardly integrate have been limited by high land fragmentation, incomplete property rights and credit constraints. As a result, the price differential between external and internal supply persists and the majority of grapes are still procured from external sources. Varied contractual forms exist between processors and growers and have been applied with varying degrees of success. Resource-management providing contracts have been introduced in an attempt to improve both the quality and quantity of grapes available for procurement. These hybrid contracts envisage increased levels of private enforcement capital and demonstrate benefits over open market purchases and solely resource providing contracts. Without processor supervision, asymmetric information gives rise to situations where growers can act opportunistically and use dedicated grape-related resources for activities not specified in these contracts. While resource-management providing contracts limit opportunistic behaviour, processors bear increased transaction costs from monitoring a partner's selection procedure and shifting the self-enforcing range of contracts toward themselves. Finally, this paper has outlined the key role of the state in improving procurement practices by providing a legal and regulatory framework for underpinning private incentives and sanctions. The state has a critical role to play in safeguarding transactions by both enforcing litigation procedures and incorporating legal dispute settling legislation.