Spatial determinants of productivity growth on agri-food Spanish firms: a comparison between cooperatives and investor-owned firms

Abstract

This study analyses the effect of the spatial factor, location, and interaction effects among peer companies, on the productivity growth of agri-food companies in Spain. With this aim, we build a productivity growth index and apply a multi-equational Seemingly Unrelated Regression on a sample of 344 Spanish cooperatives and investor-owned firms for the period 2010–2012. Our findings show that agri-food firms are influenced by spatial factors finding interesting differences between cooperatives and investor-owned firms. With regard to the geographical location, cooperatives in the western of Spain show higher productivity growth rates, whereas investor-owned firms in the northeast of Spain present better results. The interaction effect among closer peer companies is also a relevant factor to determine the productivity growth in agri-food companies. This factor is more relevant for cooperatives than for investor-owned firms.