The evolution of the Dutch dairy industry and the rise of cooperatives: Combining transaction cost and evolutionary approaches

Koen Frenken () and Gerben van der Steege

No 608, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Section of Economic Geography

Abstract: The thesis advanced in this paper holds that any transaction cost explanation of the diffusion of a particular organizational form requires an evolutionary analysis of differential performance of competing organizational forms over time. Using data on 1141 dairy factories in The Netherlands, we find evidence that cooperative factories performed significantly better than private factories, which can be explained by cooperatives’ lower transaction costs. However, superior performance is observed only in the Northern part, while cooperatives were more dominant in the Southern part. This suggests that entry conditions for cooperative factories in the South were more favourable than in the North.

Keywords: transaction cost economics; survival analysis; industry lifecycle; dairy industry; cooperatives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cse, nep-evo, nep-ino and nep-tid
Date: 2006-07, Revised 2006-07
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:0608

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