Impacts of Farm Characteristics on Difference and Growth in Farm Size : Analysis of Korean Farm-Level Panel Data

This paper examines the impacts of farm characteristics on difference and growth in farm size, using farm-level panel data from 1998 to 2002. The study employs the random effects model, which controls for the presence of heteroskedasticity across panels and autocorrelation within panels in estimation. Empirical results demonstrate that farm operator s age and education, family size, farming type, regional characteristics played important roles in accounting for the difference in farm size and growth. It is found that farm size and growth increased with operator age at early ages but decreased once a threshold age was reached. Farm size and growth increased as the education level of the farm operator increased up to a certain years of education and declined thereafter. Farm size and growth were positively affected by family size. The average farm sizes in rice farming type and hilly zone are larger than other farming types and zones. The percentage growth rate of farm size is inversely related to previous farm size, implying that growth of farm size is dependent of the initial farm size.