Sebastián Riera
Sebastián Riera
Academic training: PhD in Agriculture Economics, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany.
MSc in International Agribusiness and Rural Development Economics. Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany and University of Talca, Chile. Bachelor’s degree in Economics, National University of Cuyo, Argentina.
Work plan: Productive gaps and systemic competitiveness of regional economies in Argentine’s Andean valleys.
General objectives: Analyze the factors that cause productive gaps and explain the determinants of the systemic competitiveness of intensive crops in the Andean valleys of Argentina. Structural analysis of economic, environmental and strategic policies will provide elements of assessment and control of the competitiveness of regional economies.
Background: Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methodologies are a demanded approach to productivity and efficiency assessment. These methods determine a reference frontier according to existing technology and provide a measure of (in)efficiency in terms of supply reduction or product expansion. This analysis can be addressed from different perspectives (political, economic and environmental) following broader concepts such as systemic competitiveness that studies territorial effects under structural constraints. There is a variety of reasons why agricultural producers do not always optimize their resources and can be divided between endogenous and exogenous according to decisions or productive environment.
Activities and methodology: The work plan considers the realization of laboratory activities such as bibliographic review, design and testing of theoretical models, among others. Work will be conducted with primary and secondary information and then the results will be validated in practical and transfer activities in meetings with the members of the research and development department (CREA-Buenos Aires) and CREA groups of the Andean valleys. Parametric and nonparametric methods will be used to estimate productive performance according to the types of technology in each valley incorporating precision agriculture elements, water resource use, and spatial data analysis.
Feasibility: In order to enrich the economic analysis of the intensive agricultural systems of western Argentina, it is necessary to have reliable representative databases and achieve a fluid interaction with producers. Overall, the availability of data from recent agricultural censuses (public and private), the environment generated by the CREA methodology and interaction with specialists in the School of Agricultural Science, University of Cuyo, guarantee an area of prosperity work for the objectives of the postdoctoral project.
