Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics最新文献

In response to the challenges facing cooperatives in Vietnam and the government's emphasis on the collective economy as a pillars of the socialist-oriented market economy, numerous policies have been introduced to support and promote cooperatives development. However, their effectiveness remains underexplored. This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of government support for cooperatives in Vietnam, using a panel dataset of 6818 cooperatives from 2012 to 2016. The findings reveal heterogeneous effects of support types on cooperative performance. Capacity-building support consistently improves income generation, return on assets (ROA) and productivity, though its benefits are less pronounced for cooperatives engaged in intra-trade. Infrastructure support negatively affects ROA but significantly increases income per member. Credit support improves ROA but reduces labour growth, reflecting its focus on capital-intensive projects, with intra-trade cooperatives benefiting more in income generation. Tax support positively influences ROA, productivity and labour growth, though its benefits on ROA diminish for intra-trade cooperatives, and its effect on labour growth shifts from negative in younger cooperatives to positive in older ones. Other supports improve productivity across all cooperatives and boosts labour growth as cooperatives mature. The findings point out the need for tailored, context-specific interventions to foster sustainable cooperative development in transitioning economies.

The reality of the social economy has traditionally given rise to various debates and has been examined from different perspectives by academia. In this article, we conducted an in-depth study through a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature that addresses the reality of the social economy (in its different expressions) from a gender perspective. This enabled the establishment of the conceptual, intellectual and social structure of the scientific research literature related to these two realities. Among 703 initial articles derived from Web of Science and Scopus queries, 250 were studied and processed using the Bibliometrix tool after harmonization. The findings reveal the world's leading positions of Spain and the United Kingdom in terms of related scientific production, which is reflected as well in the case of scientific collaboration networks. Also relevant is the finding of women's empowerment in the social economy as an emerging topic related to Sustainable Development Goal 5, ‘Gender equality’. These results will help researchers understand and acknowledge the social economy as a reality inherently connected to the gender perspective, promoting a more cohesive academic community that will lay the groundwork for future research.

Distributional weighting to address concerns about diminishing marginal utility of income in benefit–cost analysis has been the topic of increased interest in recent years. Concern has been expressed about the practicability of distributional weighting, given limitations on data and on the analytical capacities of agencies. This paper contributes to a small but growing literature that attempts to provide guidance and real-world examples of distributional weighting. We develop a methodology for calculating what we call ‘population weights’, which, once computed for a given population by an analyst, can be used by other analysts to implement distributional weighting on similar populations, without those analysts needing information on income distribution or the cost or benefit experienced by households at different income levels within those populations. These population weights can be calculated without knowing the costs or benefits received by households at different income levels, using proxies for cost or benefit that may be observable or about which, in the absence of data, assumptions can be made in some cases. We implement the methodology on an example regulation and present results that we believe provide useful information to decision-makers, even in the absence of estimates of unweighted costs and benefits.

This paper conceptualizes the ownership construct in financial cooperatives by exploring its main dimensions and analysing aspects related to each dimension. Based on a qualitative approach using the grounded theory and conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), our findings reveal that ownership is a multidimensional concept comprising three interconnected dimensions: formal, psychological and active ownership. Formal ownership pertains to ownership by legal rights, psychological ownership involves ownership by feelings and active ownership encompasses ownership through actions and behaviour. The study proposes relationships among these ownership features, highlighting that the respect for members’ formal ownership rights can lead to stronger ownership feelings, and these feelings may, in turn, induce active ownership. Cooperative ownership can thus be analysed as ‘a process’, which might unfold from formal to psychological and active ownership. Formal ownership is linked to active ownership through the mediating variable of psychological ownership.

In response to increasing demands for decision-making expertise in the global business environment, agricultural co-operatives face the challenge of balancing governance adaptations with the risk of agency costs. While various mechanisms exist to align the interests of principals and agents within these organizations, communication – particularly digital – appears to hold the greatest potential. However, empirical evidence on its effectiveness remains limited. This study addresses this gap by examining the relation between both digital and non-digital communication on principal–agent alignment and overall performance in agricultural co-operatives. The empirical basis consists of a survey conducted in 2023 with 41 agricultural co-operatives in Brazil. The results of a structural equation model show that (1) digital communication is related positively to principal–agent alignment, (2) non-digital communication is not related significantly to principal–agent alignment and (3) principal–agent alignment is related positively to performance. These findings offer important insights for the governance of agricultural co-operatives, which are further explored in the conclusion.

Joint liability lending, which leverages borrowers' social ties, is crucial for providing credit access to the poor. However, scholars worry that these lending practices might undermine the social capital they utilize, hindering its development as people become wary of such arrangements. While these concerns have persisted, they lack rigorous analysis. Using a game-theoretic framework, we show that when reciprocity motivations are strong, joint liability lending can trigger social sanctions among borrowers, eroding their social capital. We test these theoretical predictions using data from the China Household Finance Survey. Our analysis reveals that variations in loan amounts unexplained by observable borrower characteristics, which serve as proxies for the use of joint liability in lending decisions, negatively impact borrowers' expenditures on maintaining social ties — our measure of social capital. These findings suggest that financial institutions should carefully implement joint liability lending to avoid damaging community social capital while serving the poor.

This study investigates the impact of cultural difference on the location allocation of government procurement in China from 2015 to 2021. We find that cultural distance significantly hinders inter-regional government procurement, and the degree of impact has an upward trend. Mechanism analysis reveals that cultural distance affects the location allocation of government procurement through information communication and identity recognition between regions. Moreover, cultural distance has a greater impact on large and medium-sized enterprises, state-owned enterprises and non-high-tech industry enterprises obtaining cross-regional government procurement orders. Further, inter-regional trade barriers also hinder the integration of the government procurement market.

Energy cooperatives promote a vision of democratic management of energy transition, but enacting this vision requires the active participation of members. In this paper, we aim to study the conditions leading to participation in the governance of cooperatives and how these conditions interact. Based on original data from a survey of members of a French energy cooperative, the study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to research how the resources available to an individual interact with their motivations to influence participative behaviour. Our empirical results show that a strong ecological orientation is a necessary condition for active participation and that, depending on their socio-economic situation, different types of members mobilize different resources to participate. We contribute to the literature on cooperative participation and ‘green behaviours’ in general by making theoretical propositions to explain participation behaviour as a conjunction of motivations, resources and opportunities.

Cooperative organizations are built on strong principles and values rooted in equity and social responsibility. However, we observe a group of cooperatives that have become embroiled in material legal violations. They egregiously commit 602 violations over 20 years related to the safety and just treatment of their members, employees, community, customers and the environment, with penalties for misconduct totalling $2.3 billion. This directly opposes the ideals espoused by cooperatives, and their susceptibility to misconduct challenges the assumption that cooperatives are immune to the ethical failures seen in public firms. We find that when government agencies bring enforcement actions against misconduct, it reduces future negative behaviour. We also find that some cooperatives make changes to the leaders who are present at the time of wrongdoing, and these cooperatives have a decrease in the severity of misconduct in the future. Collectively, these findings suggest that a number of cooperatives harm the groups they claim to serve but that government enforcement and cooperative disciplining carried out in response to regulatory violations can mitigate future misconduct.

This study attempts to examine the effect of women's participation in self-help groups (SHGs) on their financial inclusion levels. A comprehensive financial inclusion index is created specifically suited to women by incorporating the concept of ‘autonomy’ in the usage of financial services. Adding this indicator with access and usage improves the practical effectiveness of women's financial inclusion as a means to a larger end. Further, objective weights have been assigned to the financial inclusion indicators through the application of the Criteria Importance through Inter-criteria Correlation (CRITIC) method. The effect estimation is examined using propensity score matching (PSM) to gauge a true effect assessment free from self-selection bias. The results are also checked for robustness using inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA). Drawing primary data from 450 respondents from the Barak Valley region of Assam, the study establishes the importance of ‘autonomy’ in determining women's financial inclusion and finds SHG participation to be effective in enhancing the holistic financial inclusion of women. Underscoring the potential of SHGs in the upliftment of women, the study recommends regular monitoring of existing SHGs, besides expansion policies, to prevent group inactivity. To enhance women's financial autonomy, it is also suggested to conduct frequent training programmes on rights awareness, boosting self-efficacy for financial management and self-sufficiency in addressing financial challenges.