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Abstract

The object of the present paper is to analyze the productivity of marketing cooperatives incorporating environmental inputs/outputs. In the European agricultural policy, expectations for attaining sustainable and competitive agriculture lie to a great extent on the cooperative sector's ability to adapt to the new market conditions. These challenges have led marketing cooperatives in the fruit and vegetables sector to consider improvement in productivity and sound environmental performance. In this sector environmental management was intensified by the Common Agrarian Policy (CAP) through incentives on the so-called Operative Programs (OP). The present study analyses the total factor productivity (TFP) related to environmental variables in this sector using a parametric-stochastic approach and taking as reference a panel data of Spanish cooperatives for the period 1994-2002. Additionally, the determinants of productivity environmental indices are examined econ ometrically. The estimates obtained show a relevant increase in the efficiency component for the period under study and a relatively low impact of incentive schemes. However, they also show a relationship between productivity changes and several management factors in cooperatives, such as labor quality, capital intensity and environmental spillover.

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