Do financial constraints impact the technical efficiency of agricultural cooperatives? evidence from Brazil

Agricultural cooperatives have the main goals of meeting economic, social and cultural needs their members. Although they do not seek profits, must be competitive since compete with other companies in market. In this sense, search for technical efficiency to give a better market position contrasts difficulty these organizations face obtaining foreign capital enable greater investments. There is little empirical evidence, however, relationship between financial constraints organizations. According theoretical assumptions, could positive or negative. Thus, paper analyzes impact on Brazilian agricultural cooperatives. For this, we used two metrics measure constraint analyzed panel data 68 2005-2014 period. Despite predictions, our results suggest there no evidence that affect efficiency. This result can explained by characteristics attributed cooperatives, is, fact deal different commodities (multi-purpose) strong demand investments (technology). contributes literature both providing new regarding introducing metric analyzing context