Got (clean) milk? Organization, incentives, and management in Indian dairy cooperatives
Date
2023-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Abstract
Smallholder producers in developing countries often collaborate in teams that take advantage of scale economies and allocate surplus among members. We experimentally evaluate team-level incentive contracts for quality upgrading among Indian dairy cooperatives where there is a risk of free-riding because individual quality cannot be traced. Incentives improve aggregate quality, with evidence of increased effort from both producers and cooperative managers. However, several managers decline incentive payments when they cannot control how payment information is disclosed to cooperative members. Survey evidence indicates publicity lowers managerial returns, suggesting transparency-based efforts to constrain elites can undermine the core policy goal.
Description
This article was originally published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.06.002. © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This research was featured in UDaily on 3/22/2024 at: https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2024/march/cleaner-milk-global-agriculture/
Keywords
quality upgrading, cooperatives, dairy, elite capture, India
Citation
Rao, Manaswini, and Ashish Shenoy. “Got (Clean) Milk? Organization, Incentives, and Management in Indian Dairy Cooperatives.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 212 (August 2023): 708–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.06.002.