Does cooperative membership improve household welfare? Evidence from apple farmers in China

- We examine the impact of cooperative membership on household welfare.
- We use cross-sectional data collected from apple farmers in China.
- Endogenous switching regression model is employed to address the selection bias issue.
- Cooperative membership exerts a positive and significant impact on apple yields.
- Cooperative membership has positive and significant impacts on net returns and household income.

This paper examines the impact of cooperative membership on farm performance indicators such as apple yields, net returns and household income, using cross-sectional data from a survey of farmers in China. An endogenous switching regression model that accounts for selection bias is employed in the analysis. The empirical results reveal that cooperative membership exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on apple yields, farm net returns and household income. A disaggregated analysis also reveals that small-scale farms tend to benefit more from cooperatives than medium and large farms.