Cooperatives, regulation and competition in Norwegian agriculture

This article analyses the efficiency of current market regulations and market structure in Norwegian agriculture. Based on their potential to coordinate farmers' supplies, large marketing cooperatives are assigned a market regulation role. However, market prices frequently tend to fall below target prices, spurring costly additional market regulations. This is not necessarily a result of inefficient coordination by the cooperative. Using a mixed market model, the study shows that over production may be explained by the competition between marketing cooperatives and investor-owned wholesalers (IOW), typically weakening the cooperatives' ability to coordinate market supply. This conclusion is robust over a variety of IOW contracts. However, to what extent competition is to blame, depends on the target price level and the contract structure of the IOW. Moreover, it is shown that current market interventions to remove excess supplies may induce further incentives to increase production.