The West Liberty Foods turkey cooperative was formed in 1996 to purchase the assets and assume operations of Louis Rich Foods (an investor-owned processing firm), which, at the time, announced the imminent shutdown of its West Liberty, Iowa, processing facility. We study the creation and...

Cooperative formation in agriculture sometimes occurs in response to the exit of a private firm and typically requires substantial equity investment by participating farmers. What economic rationale can explain why farmers are willing to contribute capital to an activity that (apparently) fails...

The West Liberty Foods turkey cooperative was formed in 1996 to purchase the assets and assume operations of Louis Rich Foods (an investor-owned processing firm), which, at the time, announced the imminent shutdown of its West Liberty, Iowa, processing facility. We study the creation and...

Cooperative formation in agriculture sometimes occurs in response to the exit of a private firm and typically requires substantial equity investment by participating farmers. What economic rationale can explain why farmers are willing to contribute capital to an activity that fails to attract...

We study the incidence and economic rationale for cooperative bargaining in U.S. agricultural markets. Bargaining is not just about increasing price paid to farmers; indeed, there is no empirical research indicating that cooperative bargaining has any direct influence on price. Nevertheless, the...

This paper identifies market and commodity characteristics that seem to support successful cooperative bargaining in markets for farm output. Bargaining is not just about increasing prices paid to farmers; indeed, although there is very little empirical research that addresses the issue, what...

We develop a financial-contracting theory of the cooperative firm where production requires three generic tasks: working, managing, and monitoring. Workers provide an intermediate input (or labor directly); managers convert the workers' input into a final output; and directors monitor managers....