Co-operatives play a major role in the agricultural and food industry. Co-operatives, by the very nature, are producer-oriented firms. As market conditions for food products have changed in recent decades, the question is raised whether co-operatives are still efficient organisations for...

Cooperatives in agricultural and horticultural markets have faced problems in responding to the increasing differentiation in demand as well as supply. One response is the emergence of growers' associations. They are not vertically integrated forward into a processor/retailer stage of production...

This article analyses the impact of ownership structure on investments in a three-party supply chain from an incomplete contracting perspective. Circumstances are determined in which a marketing cooperative is the unique first-best ownership structure.

The relationship between the financial structure of a marketing cooperative (MC) and the requirement of the domination of control by the members is analysed from a transaction costs perspective. A MC receives less favorable terms on outside equity than a conventional firm because the decision...

Marketing co-operatives (MCs) are analysed from an incomplete contracting perspective. The requirement of the domination of control by the members of a MC is a threat to the survival of a MC in markets where the level of asset specificity at the processing stage of production is increasing....

Two extensions are formulated of the analysis of the allocation of decision rights in Hendrikse and Veerman (2001). First, the incomplete contracts in their article can be viewed as simple long-term contracts, i.e. it is not allowed to make the allocation of authority contingent on the...

Het kenmerk ledendominantie van een land- en tuinbouwcoöperatie wordt geanalyseerd vanuit een onvolledige-contracten perspectief. Ledendominantie blijkt een bedreiging voor de overleving van de coöperatieve structuur te zijn in markten waar de efficiënte investeringen worden gekarakteriseerd...

The relationship between the financial structure of marketing cooperatives and the requirement of the domination of control by the members of the cooperative is analysed with an emphasis on incomplete contracts and system complementarities. It is argued that the disappearance of shortage markets...