The Competitive Conduct of Consumer Cooperatives

Consumer cooperatives are firms owned by their customers. Although their organizational form should commit these firms not to exploit their market power, in practice, weak governance may allow managers to pursue other objectives. Using data and a structural model, we test whether consumer cooperatives in the Italian supermarket industry act as profit-maximizing firms. We find no significant deviations from profit maximization. Based on a counterfactual exercise, even a mild degree of internalization of consumer welfare by the cooperatives that we study would yield consumer welfare gains comparable to the regulatory advantages they enjoy.