The impact of inequality, gender, external assistance and social capital on local-level cooperation

Drawing upon recent theoretical advances in the analysis of cooperation, this paper presents an econometric analysis of the determinants of successful collective action based on a survey of 104 peasant cooperative institutions in Paraguay. The most important results of this analysis are: (a) the level of cooperation is not monotonically related to either the degree of inequality of endowments within the community or the level of external assistance; rather, it is of an inverted U-shape form; and (b) cooperation increases as the level of women's participation and social capital increases. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.