The U.S. pork sector is evolving from an industry of small, independent firms vertically linked by spot markets to one of substantially larger firms vertically connected through contractual agreements and integration. Potential benefits to this tighter vertical arrangement include lower consumer...

After a short presentation of EU and Italian antitrust legislation, this paper examines two recent cases of intervention by the Italian Antitrust Authority (IAA) in the agricultural sector, both dealing with high quality food products requiring a long aging process: two similar kinds of cheese...

Reorganization has been promoted as a means to strengthen the position of cooperatives within the agricultural economy. The purpose of this study is to determine if agricultural cooperatives that reorganized through merger, acquisition, or consolidation have improved their financial performance....