关键词: 农民合作社,新制度经济学,交易费用

Abstract: Based on the contract theory and transaction cost theory, this paper makes use of the survey data in Hainan Province to conduct a theoretical and empirical analysis of the factors affecting the farmers’ decision to join cooperatives with the Binomial Logistic Regression method. The results show that, in general, such factors as the householder’s education background, cooperative knowledge education, operation scale of farm household, debt, the availability to have access to information, technology and capital, as well as the prices of agricultural production means have a significant positive impact on farmers’ willingness to join cooperatives; while the householder’s special experience (village leader or other non-agricultural experience) and the prices of agricultural products have a significant negative effect on farmers’ willingness to join cooperatives. From the impact of business categories, the fruit and vegetable growers and breeders are more likely to join cooperatives than grain, rubber growers.

Key words: farmer cooperative; neo-institutional economics; transaction cost