Helmberger and Hoos' (HH) 1962 paper is a landmark in the economic theory
of agricultural cooperatives, Along with the related work by Helmberger (1964), it
represented the definitive treatment of marketing cooperative behavior and standard
reading for graduate students in agricultural marketing for more than two
decades, To understand fully HH's paper, appreciate its many strengths, and also
recognize its weaknesses: one must interpret it both in the context of the work
on cooperatives that preceded it over the prior two decades and in the framework
of developments in general economic theory at that time, In this comment I attempt
to provide such a perspective.
