Technical efficiency in agricultural cooperatives: a compared study of italian and spanish firms in fresh and vegetables sector

Agricultural cooperatives play an important socio-economic role in the European Union (EU) countries. For this reason, in an economic perspective, the measurement of their efficiency has become an area of investigation which attracts great interest. Considering that Spain and Italy are the biggest producers of fruit and vegetable, the aim of this paper is to recognize the evolution in technical efficiency in agricultural cooperatives of this sector during the period 2001-2005. The efficiency level was evaluated applying the non-parametric mathematical technique called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) (Charnes et al., 1978; Banker et al. 1984). According to the variable returns to scale model (VRS model), the results do not allow us to establish which could be the best practice due to the erratic behavior of both efficiency variables. However, when the constant returns to scale model (CRS model) is taken in account, Spanish cooperatives reveal better efficiency levels, mainly due to a more favorable dimension.