Restrições financeiras em cooperativas agropecuárias / Financial restrictions in agricultural cooperatives

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

Cooperatives are recognized as institutions with property rights poorly defined. This problem strengthens the limitations of access to financial resources imposed by the imperfections of the capital market, limiting investments and reducing the possibility of growth and more competitiveness in the market. In this context, agency problems start to occur in the relation between the managers and members of cooperatives and in the relation between cooperatives and financial agents, since cooperatives, especially the small ones, provide fewer guarantees. This situation, generated by legal terms specific for cooperatives, led to the development of the hypothesis of the present study, in which, a priori, it was assumed that small agricultural cooperatives face more financial restrictions than large agricultural cooperatives to fund the investments made in fixed operating assets. Therefore, this work aimed at analyzing if Brazilian agricultural cooperatives suffer financial restrictions to fund their fixed operating assets, using agricultural cooperatives from the state of Paraná as sample, from 1999 to 2007. It aimed at verifying if the investments in these cooperatives are restricted by the availability of internal funds, by investigating the sensitivity of cash flow investment. Another objective was to identify the behavior of investments in cooperatives with different sizes. The methodology used was based on the Econometric Models of Panel Data, to estimate the equation of investment, and Panel Vector Autoregression (PVAR) for the construction of the variable Q Fundamental, proxy for investment opportunities. Secondary data of 60 agricultural cooperatives were used, provided by the Central das Cooperativas (Cooperative Center) of the state of Paraná, the first Brazilian cooperative center to establish an accounting standardization for the agricultural cooperative sector, which allows a comparative analysis of such information. The results of the Q Investment Model indicated, when the whole cooperative sample was analyzed, that their investments are influenced by the investment opportunities. When the variable cash flow was inserted, forming the “Augmented” Q Investment Model, it was observed that the investments of the cooperatives, although affected by the opportunities of investment, were also influenced by the financial restrictions which limit the achievement of resources for these cooperatives. By the analysis of the subsamples, it was possible to verify that small and large cooperatives present financial restrictions, and that for the small ones the opportunities of investment do not affect the investments. Therefore, due to their legal and institutional environment, cooperatives are exposed to the imperfections of the capital market, regardless of their size. Some structural changes are necessary to guarantee property rights and more flexibility for the capital management in cooperatives.

ASSUNTO(S)

restrições financeiras investment financial restrictions investimento agricultural cooperatives cooperativas agropecuárias administracao de setores especificos

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