Non-parametric efficiency analysis in the Spanish agri-food co-operatives

Abstract

In aggregate perspective, this paper analyses the productive efficiency of 501 Spanish agri-food co-operatives over 2014-2017 period, covering 22 main activities and 4 different co-operative sizes. The focus is on the efficient use of resources to obtain goods and services for which three ratios are obtained, for each co-operative, between factor and product. This is a measure of factor use and the inverse is an efficiency measure. Furthermore, a non-parametric efficiency is obtained using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Efficiencies estimated using DEA are relative, that is, relative to the best performing. A comparison of results is made assuming that the operations follow both constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable return to scale (VRS). The results are given aggregate by cooperative main activity, by cooperative size and by region. Finally, and due to the importance of the sector in Catalonia, a comparison between Catalan agri-food co-operatives efficiencies and the rest of Spanish agri-food co-operatives efficiencies is presented. In the efficiency values calculated by the DEA, no biases are observed in efficient cooperatives, which are both large, medium and small size. In general, it has been observed an increase in the average efficiency of the activity groups, between 2014 and 2017, both with RCE and with RVE. The efficiency scores for Catalonian co-operatives and for the rest of the Spanish co-operatives are very similar, although efficiencies of fruits and vegetables and animal food cooperatives are smaller in Catalonian than in Spanish ones.