The cooperative is one of the most important forms of business in the agricultural sector, due to its special characteristics for small farmers and livestock producers in order to gain access to greater comparative advantages. In addition, cooperatives are a driving force in the social economy, which means that investment in agricultural cooperatives can be seen as a sustainable investment. The aim of this paper is to analyse the preferences of investors in agricultural company cooperatives, looking in depth at the role of the cooperative as a business form. In order to achieve this objective, the choice experiment methodology was applied by carrying out a questionnaire to a total of 282 investors. Latent class models were also used to identify possible groups of investors. Two classes of investors have been identified based on their preferences: owners (return seeking) and workers (risk averse).
Currently, the use of lithium as a resource in the manufacturing of technological components such as mobile phones, computers or even in the automotive sector, is in high demand. In this sense, the prospects for lithium open-pit mines in order to obtain this highly valued resource have improved remarkably. However, the installation of this type of mine causes certain negative environmental consequences such as air pollution, water pollution, and even a reduction in the biodiversity of the environment, which generates welfare losses due to the cost involved. The objective of this work is to analyse the preferences of the citizens of Cáceres (Spain) regarding the possible opening of an open-pit lithium mine in the surroundings of the city. For this, a choice experiment was carried out to identify the willingness to accept certain levels of contamination and/or reduction of biodiversity and to quantify its monetary quantification. Likewise, a mixed-effects model was applied in order to analyse the heterogeneity in preferences and the willingness to accept the installation. The results showed that water pollution is one of the most relevant attributes in the preferences, revealing a very high willingness to accept (€12–38/year) for water pollution compared to other attributes.
Traditionally, finance has paid attention to the risk-return trade-off. Recently, given the incorporation of the 2030 Agenda and climate change, a third pillar has been incorporated into the investment decision: sustainability. Socially responsible investment is an instrument that can incorporate all three pillars. This paper aims to assess sustainability by Spanish investors using a choice experiment by applying the Bayesian approach with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling and obtain the willingness to pay (invest) for each attribute. The results show that profitability remains the most important factor, although risk is at the same level as sustainability.
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