Producer Cooperatives, Input Pricing and Land Allocation

This paper considers input pricing rules for a producer cooperative which supplies its members with two inputs: a publicly provided private input (water), and a local public input (road services). An Israeli Moshav which allocates land equally among producers is a good example. The cooperative uses a two‐part pricing rule: a product‐dependent uniform fee (head tax) and a user charge per unit of the private input. Discrimination of head tax among the producer groups is shown to dominate that of user charge in the short run. However, land reallocation among producers can result in a Pareto‐superior pricing rule and the Henry George theorem emerges in the long run. Thus, allowing land leasing while maintaining equal rights to land increases producer welfare.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)