Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics最新文献

Rural collective-owned cooperatives (RCOCs) have received significant attention for rural development, alleviating rural poverty, and achieving common welfare in China. Using the Social-ecological system (SES) framework as a conceptual and analytical lens, this paper clarifies the determinants and the influence mechanism for the economic performance of RCOCs. A mixed method, PLS-SEM combined NCA approach is applied to 420 smallholder farmers in rural China. The results reveal that rural collective property-rights system reform (RCPRSR), leadership, social capital, and collective action positively affect the economic performance of RCOCs. Moreover, leadership and social capital also operate through their mediating effect on collective action amongst collective members. Our results further show that RCPRSR, leadership, and social capital are necessary conditions for the high economic performance of RCOCs.

In times of crisis, the study of employment is of vital importance, especially that generated by cooperatives, which show great resilience. This paper analyzes the evolution of employment created by cooperatives in the different Spanish regions in relation to total employment between 1999 and 2019 with a pioneering approach. We analyze the existence of convergence clubs among the Spanish regions using the methodology developed by Phillips and Sul (2007, 2009). The results show the existence of four clubs that include the regions that converge in relative terms of cooperative employment over the 20 years analyzed. The lack of homogeneity in the behavior of employment in cooperatives in the different Spanish regions is demonstrated, with certain divergences among regions. These divergences make it difficult to establish a model of cooperative employment for the whole of Spain.

In recent decades, the largest European worker cooperatives, and those that are the most emblematic in their countries, have been transformed into multinational companies. This article examines workers’-cooperative multinationality by providing a classifying tool based on the interaction between control rights and return rights held by foreign employees in the subsidiaries of multinational cooperatives. We illustrate our matrix of cooperative multinationality by classifying an internationalized historical cooperative, Up Group (formerly Chèque Déjeuner, SCOP). In the last few decades, the French cooperative Up has become a hybrid multinational player in the employee benefits industry by setting up capitalist subsidiaries both in France and overseas. The case study also reports on Up's innovative attempt to produce a global cooperative or a more democratic multinational enterprise through converting subsidiaries’ employees into associates.

Although works councils provide a highly developed mechanism to promote workplace democracy, research on their consequences has been dominated by economic aspects. This study brings a new perspective to the understanding of works councils by examining their influence on workers’ political behavior. Political spillover theory suggests that participation in the firm's decision making has the potential to foster workers’ political participation in civic society. Our study for Germany indeed finds a positive association between the presence of a works council and workers’ interest in politics. This holds in panel data estimations including a large set of controls and accounting for unobserved individual-specific factors. However, separate estimations by gender show a positive association between works councils and political interest only for men, but not for women. Traditional gender roles may make it difficult for women to be politically engaged even when a works council is present.

This special issue features 14 new research papers investigating the role of farmers’ organizations (e.g., collective action, self-help groups, producer companies/organizations, and cooperatives) in supporting sustainable development. The key findings include: (1) farmer groups and cooperatives promote farmers’ adoption of good farm management practices, new agricultural technologies and sustainable farming practices, although not substantially improving farm yield; (2) outsourcing services provided by agricultural cooperatives help to increase the technical efficiency of crop production; (3) cooperative membership enhances members’ bargaining power and enables them to sell their products at higher prices; (4) cooperatives motivate rural laborers to work in off-farm sectors, while self-help groups empower rural women in decision-making; (5) internet use improves agricultural cooperatives’ economic, social, and innovative performances; (6) direct administrative intervention supporting cooperative development may lead to the emergence of shell cooperatives; (7) participation in forest farmer organizations enables wood value chain upgrading; (8) increasing the cooperative size in terms of income, equity, and assets increases the profitability of savings and credit cooperatives; and (9) creating cross-border cooperation between cooperatives generates benefits for all parties involved. These findings can inspire the design of policies aimed to support farmers’ organizations in achieving sustainable development goals.

Agricultural cooperatives are increasingly being viewed as an effective means of promoting agricultural technologies in developing countries. This paper examines the effects of cooperative membership on inorganic fertilizer use intensity. Employing a three-wave panel dataset relating to smallholder maize farmers in Ethiopia, we model inorganic fertilizer application as a two-step decision-making process involving both fertilizer adoption and its use intensity. To reflect these two related steps, we use a double-hurdle model. We account for unobservable household heterogeneity and endogeneity utilizing a correlated random-effects framework and a control function approach. The findings reveal that cooperative membership increased inorganic fertilizer use intensity, as well as the probability of it being used in the first place by 4.2% and 5.3%, respectively. Following further examination of who benefits most among cooperative members, we discovered that membership benefits all farmers in terms of fertilizer use intensity, irrespective of the members’ poverty status. However, we did not observe a significant effect of cooperative membership on the likelihood of fertilizer use by land-poor and less asset-endowed households. This highlights the necessity of implementing policies that provide poor and marginalized Ethiopian maize farmers with resources that enhance the contribution agricultural cooperatives make to their well-being.

This study examines the impact of farmers' professional cooperatives (FPCs) on agricultural technical efficiency (TE), using panel data from 30 provinces of China from 2015 to 2020 and the stochastic frontier function (SFF) method. The number of members of each cooperative, the proportion of demonstration cooperatives, and the proportion of standard cooperatives are introduced as proxy variables for the development level of FPCs. The results show that although the development of FPCs is imperfect, its development has a significant positive impact on improving China's agricultural TE. Through the continuous increase in the number of cooperative members and the vigorous promotion of standardized production, agricultural TE has been significantly improved. However, the construction of model cooperatives has not played a positive role but inhibited the growth of agricultural TE. It is suggested to expand the cooperative membership and promote standardized production. The government and policymakers should focus on improving the standardization level of cooperatives and the development quality of FPCs from the aspects of innovating cooperation models, standardizing internal governance, and giving full play to the synergistic effect of agricultural science and technology.

Initiatives across the private, public, and third sectors have increasingly pursued social value beyond mere profit. However, how social value can be created still requires a more detailed investigation. This paper provides conceptual and empirical arguments on how initiatives of social innovation, which intentionally seek to empower people, contribute to generate social value. We investigate three European social innovation cases—which are collective entrepreneurial initiatives. Using mixed methods applied to primary nested data, we first find evidence for empowering effects and then identify a typical process through which empowerment occurs. Our results suggest that social innovations catalyze empowerment through a horizontal and co-creational organizational design, providing space for individuals to propose their goals and establishing mechanisms of mutual influence that transform individual autonomy into coactive power. This process kicks off social value creation, yet its reach within society depends on how much empowerment diffuses beyond the participants in the initiative.

Empirical studies show that smallholder farmers can benefit from collective action by improving their crop production and access to better markets. Although there are numerous studies on the effects of collective action on production and marketing of staple crops, such studies, particularly on the analysis of gender and collective action, are scarce for underutilized crops such as baobab. To address this gap, we estimate the impacts of cooperative membership on baobab income and food security, using data collected from a survey of 864 baobab collectors in Malawi. We employ the Inverse Probability Weight Regression Adjustment estimator to account for selection bias. We also analyse heterogeneity in the impact of cooperatives attributable to gender. We find that cooperative membership increases baobab income, household dietary diversity score, and food consumption score by 3.57%, 11%, and 5.6%, respectively. However, the welfare outcome of cooperative members differs based on gender. In particular, households with male baobab managers that are cooperative members have higher income and are more food secure. Households with unmarried female managers have better welfare outcomes. The results, therefore, highlight the need to promote collective action through cooperatives in the underutilized crop sector to enhance household welfare.

In developing countries, agricultural cooperatives are increasingly used by farmers as a mechanism to gain market power in input and output markets. To assess the impact of cooperative membership on market channel selection and pricing outcomes, we conducted a survey of 661 Nepali goat farmers in 2019–20 and applied an endogenous switching probit model to analyze the data. Our findings indicate that cooperative membership had a significant and positive influence on farmers choosing cooperatives as their market channel. Additionally, farmers who sold their goats through cooperatives received significantly higher prices than those who sold through local markets or to goat collectors. We also observed that farmers who had access to price information were able to obtain better prices for their goats. Overall, our study highlights the potential benefits of promoting cooperative membership and marketing through cooperatives, as these efforts can help farmers improve the returns on their agricultural investments.