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Mill ownership and farmer's cooperative behavior: the case of Costa Rica coffee farmers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2017

ASTRID HOPFENSITZ Open the ORCID record for ASTRID HOPFENSITZ [Opens in a new window]  and
JOSEPA MIQUEL-FLORENSA
ASTRID HOPFENSITZ*
Affiliation:
Toulouse School of Economics, 21 Allee de Brienne, 31015, Toulouse, France
JOSEPA MIQUEL-FLORENSA*
Affiliation:
Toulouse School of Economics, 21 Allee de Brienne, 31015, Toulouse, France
*
*Email: [email protected]
**Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

We analyze how Costa Rican coffee farmer's behavior in an experimental public good game depends on the institutional structure of the farmers buying point (cooperative vs. privately owned mills), and on the background of their game partners (partners selling to the same type of mill or not). We find that cooperative farmers do not display more public good orientation than private market farmers when playing with partners from the same type of mill. However, though farmers selling to private mills make no difference with respect to the background of partners, farmers selling to cooperatives significantly decrease contributions when paired with non-cooperative members. Finally, we study how self-selection into a mechanism that punishes the lowest contributors effects contributions both inside the group and with partners of the opposite background, and we show that it increases contributions by cooperative farmers interacting with non-cooperative farmers by more than 100%.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 623 - 648
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2017 

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