Performance of spanish cooperatives: from the Great Recession to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This is study is focused on Spanish cooperatives. The data span thirteen years (2008-2020). It includes the Great Recession, the upturn years that came after it, and the worst year of the COVID-19 crisis to date. The aim is to evaluate cooperatives’ performance from the financial crisis to 2020. This aim is broken down into three specific objectives: i) To analyse the effects of the health crisis on the number of cooperatives and on employment within them. ii) To analyse changes in cooperatives’ economic performance, represented by economic and financial profitability ratios. iii) To assess whether belonging to a given activity sector affects cooperatives’ profitability. The results indicate that the 2008 crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic increased the pro-cyclical behaviour of cooperatives’ employment. However, self-employment was less elastic than salaried employment. The profitability results show that the COVID-19 crisis did not consistently affect cooperatives’ economic and financial ratios. Agri-food sector withstood the Great Recession and displayed a counter-cyclical behaviour in the pandemic year.