The degree of cooperativism in Europe: Towards an evaluation model for cooperative banking

Democracy, social commitment and proximity are fundamental values of cooperative‐based financial institutions. The degree of cooperativism of an entity (or, by extension, of a territorial area or country) can be associated with the intensity with which the entity promotes the inherent values of cooperatives. This paper aims to analyse what we call the degree of cooperativism of cooperative banks at the European level by proposing a ranking of countries and entities based on a synthetic index. Using data from recent years published by the European Association of Cooperative Banks, we propose a cooperativism index considering democratic, proximity‐related and economic aspects. The proposed synthetic index offers the advantage of integrating different ethical and economic principles, such as the principle of maximum efficiency or the principle of maximum fairness. The results show that Austria is the country where the degree of cooperativism is most developed according to the proposed index.