An Essay on Cooperative Bargaining in U.S. Agricultural Markets
-
Brent Hueth
and Philippe Marcoul
We study the incidence and economic rationale for cooperative bargaining in U.S. agricultural markets. Bargaining is not just about increasing price paid to farmers; indeed, there is no empirical research indicating that cooperative bargaining has any direct influence on price. Nevertheless, the price negotiation process may be useful in itself as a form of price discovery in markets where there is uncertainty about market supply and demand conditions, and bargaining associations can play an important role in ensuring contract reliability. These and other benefits must be weighed against the organizational and on-going operational costs of a formal bargaining association when considering whether bargaining is appropriate for a given market environment. Even when the aggregate net benefits associated with bargaining are positive, the distribution of benefits across the various market participants may have an important influence on the political feasibility of bargaining
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Cooperative Investment and the Value of Contracting with Transaction Costs
- Tough Love: Optimal Enforcement of Output Quotas in the Presence of Cheating
- Pricing-to-Market versus Residual Demand Elasticity Analysis of Imperfect Competition in Food Exports: Evidence from Germany
- Food Supply Management and Tariffication: A Game Theoretic Approach
- Social Welfare and the Market Power-Efficiency Tradeoff in U.S. Food Processing: A Note
- The Gains and Losses from Agricultural Concentration: A Critical Survey of the Literature
- Explaining Plant Exit in the U.S. Meat and Poultry Industries
- Contract Design: A Note on Cash Settled Futures
- Explaining Price Dispersion for Homogeneous Grocery Products
- An Essay on Cooperative Bargaining in U.S. Agricultural Markets
- Costly (Dis)Agreement: Optimal Intervention, Income Redistribution, and Transfer Efficiency of Output Quotas in the Presence of Cheating
- Inventory Constraints in a Dynamic Model of Imperfect Competition: An Application to Beef Packing
- Some Unintended Consequences of TRQ Liberalization
- Information Pooling and Collusion: Implications for The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act
- Concentration and Innovation in the U.S. Food Industries
- Vertical Product Differentiation in Theory and Practice
- Agricultural Marketing Institutions: A Response to Quality Disputes
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Cooperative Investment and the Value of Contracting with Transaction Costs
- Tough Love: Optimal Enforcement of Output Quotas in the Presence of Cheating
- Pricing-to-Market versus Residual Demand Elasticity Analysis of Imperfect Competition in Food Exports: Evidence from Germany
- Food Supply Management and Tariffication: A Game Theoretic Approach
- Social Welfare and the Market Power-Efficiency Tradeoff in U.S. Food Processing: A Note
- The Gains and Losses from Agricultural Concentration: A Critical Survey of the Literature
- Explaining Plant Exit in the U.S. Meat and Poultry Industries
- Contract Design: A Note on Cash Settled Futures
- Explaining Price Dispersion for Homogeneous Grocery Products
- An Essay on Cooperative Bargaining in U.S. Agricultural Markets
- Costly (Dis)Agreement: Optimal Intervention, Income Redistribution, and Transfer Efficiency of Output Quotas in the Presence of Cheating
- Inventory Constraints in a Dynamic Model of Imperfect Competition: An Application to Beef Packing
- Some Unintended Consequences of TRQ Liberalization
- Information Pooling and Collusion: Implications for The Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act
- Concentration and Innovation in the U.S. Food Industries
- Vertical Product Differentiation in Theory and Practice
- Agricultural Marketing Institutions: A Response to Quality Disputes