Abstract

LACELLI, Gabriel  and  DOMINGUEZ, Jorge Néstor. Economías de escala en la producción de algodón. SaberEs [online]. 2017, vol.9, n.1, pp.113-129. ISSN 1852-4418.

75% of cotton production units in Santa Fe fall into the category of Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs). This conditions the incorporation of technologies related to scale, and has in turn impact on costs and revenues, because fixed costs and some variable costs represent increasing proportions of income and lead to situations of financial distress or bankruptcy, even in similar levels of prices and yields. The aim of this study is to determine the difference in economic results in major cotton companies over small ones, analyzing the causes. For that, two representative models of large enterprise and small family business in northern Santa Fe were built, both based on open interviews and focus group determination. The results indicate that the great company develops the activity with the potential for better net margins, but this is not due to technological bias inherent in size but to a better development of non-production strategies: buying inputs at lower prices, higher product price, low capital lockup in fixed assets and a strong outsourcing work.

Keywords : Size economies; Compensatory fund; Regional  economies.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )