Purpose: French wine cooperatives show differences of corporate objectives, but also common ones with private wine merchants, as they face a common economic environment. The traditional controlling and financial models do not seem adequate to measure ‘sustainable social economy’ performances...

While most economic organisation literature on cooperatives has focused on changes in income rights, we study changes in the allocation of decision rights between board of directors (representing members) and managers. The traditional role of the board is to direct the activities of the...

A description and analysis of China’s Farmer Specialized Cooperatives is presented. Data is presented regarding the historical development of farmer cooperatives in China, the membership composition of a sample of 66 farmer cooperatives in the Zhejiang province, and the various attributes...

This article addresses three observations regarding the board of directors in agricultural cooperatives. First, many scholars and practitioners worry about the competency of the member dominated board of directors in agricultural cooperatives. Second, it is sometimes stated that cooperatives...

After the two studies of 1998 and 2003, the latest “EAA-LR” research, undertaken in 2010 and based on the results of 2009, is permeated by a context of recession, both economic and agricultural, and even more apparent than during the 2003 study, having particularly affected the wine growing...

A principal-agent model is formulated to capture the efficiency of cooperatives with a member CEO and cooperatives with an employed outsider as CEO. Results of the model show that the incentive strength regarding the member CEO is stronger compared to that of the outside CEO in order to shift...

This article addresses the influence costs problem in the governance structure ‘agribusiness cooperative.’ Influence costs are higher in cooperatives than in investor-oriented firms due to the unique governance structure of the former. Hypotheses are formulated and tested regarding the...

The last decade brought substantial increased participation in commodity markets by index funds that maintain long positions in the near futures contracts. Policy makers and academic studies have reached sharply different conclusions about the effects of these funds on commodity futures prices....

The document summarises the results of twenty years of coordination of research programmes on urban food supply in Africa and Asia in collaboration with national researchers. The main research questions are the following ones: What is the role of geographical and relational proximity in the...

The impact of food safety standards on international trade has already been addressed. Generally, economists try to assess trade losses borne by exporters when importing countries impose stricter regulations. In this paper we assess the impact of the Maximum Residue Levels (MRL) of pesticides on...