Cooperatives versus Corporations: Survival in the French Wine Industry

摘要

This article examines the survival rates of cooperatives in the French wine industry. Traditional theory claims that cooperatives are inefficient and consequently are prone to failure, but recent literature suggests a higher resilience. Can cooperatives cope better? We find that French wine cooperatives survive longer than corporations. This result is robust in semi-parametric and parametric models, even when we control for mergers and acquisitions. The higher survival rate of wine cooperatives seems to be associated with their ability to pass changes in their business environments on to their members.