Organizing Vertical Relationships (with an emphasis on cooperatives)


Speakers


Abstract

Programme
13.10 - 13.15 Welcome by George Hendrikse
 
13.15 - 14.00 Sigismundo Bialoskorski Neto (University of Sao Paulo), Informal and Relational Contracts in Brazil’s Agribusiness Cooperatives. Abstract: In Brazil, the relatively collectivist society and the particular institutional environment with an inflexible law system influence the contractual relations on co-operatives owned and managed by producers. It is possible to observe that Brazilian co-operatives organizations are more intensively based on informal relations among its members than formal contractual relations. This paper aims to explain why such informal and relational contracts occur by analyzing its logic. Then, the objective of this paper is discusses the basis for the use of informal relational contracts in Brazilian co-operatives, and answering the research question: informal relational contracts in Brazilian co-operatives is based on the Brazilian collectivist culture to minimize transactions costs, or is only a particular stage of social and business development? At the end it is possible to conclude that the vaguely definition of property rights in these co-operatives is part of its organizational model and allows the existence of relational and influence rights, implying on transaction costs and incentivizing the member’s participation
 
   
14.15 - 15.00 Kostas Karantininis (University of Copenhagen), Genetically Modified Foods in Vertically Differentiated and Vertically Oligopolistic Markets. Abstract: We develop a model with heterogeneous consumer preferences and heterogeneous producer returns in a vertical oligopoly seting in orderto analyze the market and welfare effects of adventitious presence (AP) thresholds of genetically modified (GM) products in non-genetically modified (NGM) foods. In this research, we consider the economic implications of AP thresholds of GM foods under oligopoly/oligopsony market structure, where retailers have market power in both upstream and downstream level. Our analysis indicates that a change in purity thresholds creates winners and losers among consumers and producers of both GM and NGM products. We focus on both vertical product differentiation and vertical market structure and establish parameters with respect to different levels of market power and simulate them with various values attributed to the parameters.
 
   
15.15 - 15.35 Roldan Muradian (Radboud University), What can Experimental Economics tell us about Farmers’ Cooperatives in Developing Countries?
   
   
15.40 - 16.00 Jos Bijman (Wageningen UR), Customer Commitment: Comparing Cooperatives and IOFs in Farm Supplies.
 
   
Contact information:
Dicea Jansen
Email