Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics最新文献

There are few empirical explanations for the decreasing number of cooperatives in the agricultural sector. To address the gap in the literature, we investigate the incidence of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and liquidations and dissolutions (L&Ds) among more than 1000 farmer cooperatives in the United States for the 2010–2020 period by means of survival analysis within a competing risk framework. According to our novel results, M&As are more common than L&Ds, corresponding to exit strategies of larger farmer cooperatives to achieve scale and scope economies. The incidence of L&Ds is almost entirely driven by size as relatively small cooperatives are more at risk. Implications and future research directions are discussed in the conclusion.

Although research on the impacts of agricultural cooperatives is growing, studies on the effects of dairy cooperative membership on food security in developing countries remain scarce. This article follows the same line of inquiry to determine the impact of dairy cooperative membership on food and nutrition security (household dietary diversity score and food insecurity experience score) using data from 515 rural dairy farmers in Zambia. To account for selection bias issues, we use the endogenous switching Poisson regression model supplemented with the Poisson regression with endogenous treatment and machine learning techniques. Results indicate that age, education, dairy farming experience and participation in seminars on cooperatives positively influence dairy cooperative membership. Conversely, higher milk prices at collection centres are associated with a decreased likelihood of cooperative membership. We find that dairy cooperative membership increases dietary diversity and food security for a dairy farmer and dairy cooperative members as well as the non-members if they joined dairy cooperatives. Further, dairy cooperative membership increases food and nutrition security for dairy farmers who join cooperatives because they are nearby. Collectively, our results support increased dairy cooperative development in rural areas to improve food and nutrition security of rural dwellers in developing countries.

The study investigates the potential welfare effect of basic income support (BIS) in reducing poverty and inequality in South Africa. Using the 2017 labour force survey and a benefit incidence analysis, we consider three BIS scenarios: (i) universal income support for those aged between 18 and 59; (ii) only those who are unemployed receive the benefit; and (iii) only unemployed individuals in extremely poor households defined by the food poverty line receive the benefit. Results show that BIS can reduce poverty and inequality. However, the specific effects of the BIS will depend on the targeting scenario considered. The universal BIS is more costly and has higher leakage, with more benefits going to the non-poor. However, this universal support has the biggest overall impact on poverty and inequality reduction because more South Africans receive income support under this scenario. Meanwhile, targeting only the unemployed and the impoverished makes the BIS more pro-poor and progressive, as well as mitigating the leakage of the benefit to the non-poor. This would, however, require that an appropriate targeting mechanism be in place.

The competitiveness of Catalan agri-food cooperatives is studied from a new point of view, their internationalization and specifically the effects on internationalization due to the adoption of quality certifications. Most of the previous research focuses on organizational, economic and commercial aspects, and there are few works linking both fields. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyse the behaviour of the relationship between internationalization and certification. For this purpose, the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test for two independent samples and boxplot analysis were used. The results of this research show a positive relationship between different certification systems and internationalization. Empirical evidence was found: Exporting cooperatives that adopt ISO 9001 or a production system certification have a higher export intensity and geographical diversification than those that do not adopt it.

Most of South Sudan's rural population ekes out a living from farming in a fragile context characterized by compounding and interrelated shocks. The productivity of maize, a key staple, has remained comparatively low. South Sudan is currently transforming its agricultural sector to be at the centre of its economic activity. Programming has zoomed in on seed-related interventions. Cooperatives, which are longstanding and widespread in the country, are leveraged to distribute seed and, by mitigating production risk, could contribute to resilient development. To shed light on the key functions of cooperatives and how their role can be enhanced, we analysed recent data from 1247 maize-producing households and 126 agricultural cooperatives from South Sudan. We find that through their services cooperatives contribute to both increasing maize yields and reducing their variability. Yield increases associated with seed production and/or distribution services are substantial but exclusive to members. Managerial capital in the form of a hired manager instead also generates spillover effects to the broader community. Our findings point to the relevance of cooperatives as indispensable stakeholders for the resilient development of the country and the need for investments to strengthen their managerial capital and enhance the provision of services related to seed production and/or distribution.

Many policymakers are unwilling, or think that it is infeasible, to perform comprehensive cost–benefit analysis (CBA) of programmes in social policy arenas. What principles actually underlie CBA? An understanding is necessary to assess whether other evaluation methods are close enough to CBA to provide useful information on social efficiency. This paper explains five underlying CBA principles and the challenges in applying them to social policy arenas. It assesses a number of ‘less-than comprehensive’ versions of CBA and analyses their ‘closeness’ to comprehensive CBA and, thus, their value as assessments of changes in social efficiency. We show some types of analysis are not close enough and explain why. We provide a taxonomy of these methods in terms of their comprehensiveness with respect to both social costs and benefits. We also argue that an analysis should provide a clear normative basis for its geographic scope in order to claim it assesses economic efficiency.

This paper aims to elucidate the relationship between members' perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within consumer cooperatives, their loyalty towards the cooperatives and the mediating roles of psychological ownership and consumer citizenship behaviour. A sample comprising 773 members of four Korean consumer cooperative federations was constructed and analysed using the structural equation model. In Korea, consumer cooperatives have developed a production and distribution network for eco-friendly organic agricultural products. In addition, they have grown by practicing social responsibility as a primary organizational goal with consumer members. The results show that CSR perceptions have a direct effect on member loyalty, and psychological ownership and customer citizenship behaviour serially mediate the relationship between perceived CSR and member loyalty. This paper provides empirical support for suggestions about the factors influencing member loyalty within consumer cooperatives and the relative importance of non-financial motivations. It also provides a foundation upon which practitioners of cooperatives can build more effective CSR communications strategies with members.

This paper explores the long-term impact of China's Great Leap Forward (GLF) on current differences in cooperative behaviour across Chinese regions and the underlying trust channel of causality. Combining the current firm-level survey with grain yield over-reporting during the GLF era, we find that past government dishonesty regarding over-reporting in the GLF period has long-term negative consequences on people's behaviours. The firms in the prefecture with a higher degree of yield over-reporting are less likely to engage in R&D collaborations today. Further tests reveal the possible trust channel through which past government dishonesty impedes current cooperative behaviour. We extend the analyses to social norms of trust and show that GLF over-reporting has shifted an individual's internal norms towards a present-day mistrust culture, which contributes to explain the negative effect of GLF over-reporting on cooperative behaviour. Our findings suggest that dishonest behaviours by local governments in the past can lead to lasting adverse effects on an individual's behaviour in the form of mistrust and subsequent lower frequencies of cooperative behaviour, providing new insights on the origins of cultural differences and human behaviours by investigating the role of governments in shaping social and economic interactions.

The emergence of agricultural cooperatives is widely viewed as a potential institutional arrangement that can help achieve rural poverty reduction by improving farmers’ welfare in developing countries. However, empirical evidence on the effect of cooperative membership on welfare and rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa remains limited. This paper examines the effect of cooperative membership on the welfare and poverty levels of maize-farming households, using a comprehensive three-wave panel dataset from three major maize-producing regions in Ethiopia. The welfare effect of cooperative membership was estimated using a correlated random-effects regression with a control function to account for unobservable heterogeneity and the endogeneity of cooperative membership. The findings show that cooperative membership significantly increased maize yield and enhanced the welfare of maize farmers by improving household income, subsequently leading to reductions in the prevalence of income poverty and the poverty gap. Further analysis reveals that while cooperative membership is pro-poor in terms of its effect on maize yield, its effect on income and poverty tends to favour wealthier members with greater assets and extended landholdings. In this light, supporting poor and marginalized farmers with the resources needed would help improve the welfare gains from cooperative membership, thereby ensuring a more inclusive approach to poverty reduction.