An information economic rationale for cooperatives
当农民的生产成本只有自己知道时，合作社能实现社会最优产量，尤其在成本不确定性大、净平均收益产品小时更有效。
We consider how to organise the processing and marketing of an agricultural product when farming costs are known only by the individual farmers. We show that when marginal costs are uncorrelated, the market for final goods is competitive, and the market for processing is non-competitive, the socially optimal production levels are sustained by a cooperative and a cooperative only. We show also that the cooperative form is particularly useful when the cost uncertainty is large and the net average revenue product is small.