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Nonlinear Pricing Schemes for Agricultural Cooperatives
Author(s) -
Vercammen James,
Fulton Murray,
Hyde Charles
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1243275
Subject(s) - nonlinear pricing , purchasing , microeconomics , economics , nonlinear system , mathematical optimization , computer science , business , mathematics , operations management , physics , quantum mechanics
Standard pricing practices are generally not efficient for a cooperative. Sexton (1986) suggests that membership fees/rebates can be used to facilitate efficient pricing, but such schemes may not be feasible because of membership heterogeneity and information asymmetries. In this paper a constrained efficient pricing rule for a cooperative is derived that explicitly addresses the heterogeneity and information constraints. The optimal rule generally entails nonlinear pricing which, for the case of a farm purchasing cooperative, entails a higher average price for higher delivery volumes. The constrained efficient rule is modified to distribute the benefits more evenly over the cooperative's membership.