농협 RPC의 가격결정 행위에 대한 실증분석

An Empirical Analysis on the Pricing Behavior of Rice Processing Complex in Korean Agricultural Cooperatives

The literature on agricultural cooperatives in Korea mainly focuses on normative and management issues. Accordingly, there has not been much empirical work utilizing economic theories on the behavior of cooperatives. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the pricing behavior of Korean RPCs (Rice Processing Complexes) empirically. In particular, the pricing models characterizing the economic behavior of cooperatives are derived to analyze cooperative`s pricing schemes. Econometric analysis shows the pricing behavior of RPCs is consistent with a cross-subsidy pricing scheme since the price of raw rice product is greater than its NARP(net average revenue product). Then, the price of raw rice product is determined at its maximum NARP from a variable NRP(net revenue product) function model which considers capital costs as fixed costs in the short run. Accordingly, the cooperative RPCs found to be reluctant to increase their business volumes because profit loss might occur with a volume increase due to cross-subsidy pricing behavior.