New Publication:The Meta Pricing Efficiency of Producer Cooperatives Under Hedonic Product Attributes: The Case of German Wine. [25.03.26]
Hansen, R. & Hess, S. (2026).
Journal of Agricultural Economics.1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.70036.
Abstract
High internal coordination costs may put cooperatives at a disadvantage in the production and marketing of agri-food products with hedonic quality attributes. The efficiency of cooperatives and non-cooperatives is therefore compared with respect to their ability to place wines on the market at prices that reflect their measurable quality attributes. The results of a stochastic metafrontier panel of 1240 wine prices from two German wine guides suggest that consumers should purchase wine from cooperatives if they are seeking a favourable relation between market prices and wine quality. In turn, members of wine cooperatives should ask themselves why non-cooperatives are typically better at achieving higher prices for the respective quality of their wines and how they can close the price gap with non-cooperative wineries.
