We use original data to assess if the current incentives to farmer turnover may help the competitiveness of small farms in the Lazio Region (central Italy). Our results show that substantial changes in the policy may be needed. The paper analyzes sharp declining trend in small farm number,...

Recent studies have questioned the competitiveness of agricultural cooperatives in an industrialized food system, based on empirical results and economic theory. New organizational institutions have been proposed to overcome the cooperative main weaknesses (the so called new generation...

In the absence of reliable a priori information, choosing the appropriate theoretical model to describe anindustry’s behavior is a critical issue for empirical studies about market power. A wrong choice may result inmodel misspecification and the conclusions of the empirical analysis may be...

Excessive leverage is one of the most important problems facing Italian agricultural cooperatives as the competition in the EU intensifies. An empirical study of 500 agricultural cooperatives supports the hypothesis that cooperatives characterized as having "powerful managers" have a capital...

In the absence of reliable a priori information, choosing the appropriate theoretical model to describe an industry’s behavior is a critical issue for empirical studies about market power. A wrong choice may result in model misspecification and the conclusions of the empirical analysis may be...