Past Research

Collective Action in Rural Communities

The goal of this project was to enhance opportunities for rural cooperative entrepreneurship by providing decision-making tools and research-based information to cooperative and economic developers, rural entrepreneurs, and policy makers.

In the report, you will find:

• factors that contribute to new co-op development in rural areas,
• case studies of five major clusters of new rural co-ops,
• concrete recommendations for you to use in your own work,
• the National Cooperative Ecosystem Resource Map, and more!

Research on the Economic Impact of Cooperatives

Given the unique niche that cooperatives fill in the U.S. economy, it is unfortunate that so little is known about where and how cooperatives operate. Unlike data-reporting agencies of many other countries, the U.S. Census Bureau does not identify cooperatives in any of its census or business reporting surveys. As a consequence, there are no federally reported data on cooperatives in the United States.

The purpose of this project is to fill this gap by conducting a census of cooperatives, and by measuring their impact on aggregate income and employment.