Credit market access and profitability in Tunisian agriculture

This work develops an econometric model that links credit access with agricultural profitability and investment. Using data collected from rural Tunisia, this work provides direct estimates of credit access and its effects. Econometric estimates are run for agricultural investment and profitability as a function of credit access. The investigation of credit access and its effect suggests that the presence of credit market constraints does impinge significantly on farm profitability, but not on investments. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.