The Impact of the Recent Economic Crisis on the Food Industry in the Czech and Slovak Republic

The paper analyzes the food industry in the Czech and Slovak economy. It utilizes two methods (Cobb-Douglas total factor productivity and Data envelopment analysis) and two data samples (the Czech statistical office firm database and Bisnode Inc. firm database) to test the hypotheses related to the development in the food sector after and during the years of the recent economic crisis. The results suggest that the labor productivity only decreased in the first years, 2007 and 2008. After that there is no statistically significant evidence about any negative effects in the years 2009 and 2010. We believe that this sector in both countries is capable to react to changes relatively quickly. We believe that this sector is fairly stable, not only thanks to the medium to large companies, which are more experienced with public support and utilize increasing returns to scale, but also thanks to the entrant firms that had higher productivity in Slovakia in 2014 and firms with internationally recognizable certificates in both countries in 2014.