[摘要]效率是任何经济组织需要关注的永恒命题。在现代市场经济社会中，没有效率就意味着没有竞争力。为保持竞争力，合作社提高经济效率有其必然性。合作社效率内涵应包含两方面：一方面可理解为合作社的投入产出效率，属于其内部效率；另一方面指合作社对社会总福利的贡献度，可视为其外部效率。然而，合作社的外部效率，即帕累托最优的理想状态在现实中并不存在，也难以进行定量评价。因此，合作社对投入产出效率的追求，具有现实合理性。

　　合作社效率由其所选择的目标函数决定。不同功能类型的合作社具有不同的目标函数，相同的目标函数是衡量合作社效率的前提条件。由于信息不对称、管理不善等原因，合作社一般存在非效率，实现其有效率状态是一种偶然现象。因此，采用有效方法准确测度合作社的效率值并探讨影响效率的因素更有现实意义。

　　关于合作社效率的影响因素。规模对合作社效率产生影响，并且合作社在理论上存在一个最佳规模，即合作社具有最大规模效率的点。合作社还存在一个适宜规模的问题，其规模只有具有动态适应性，才能在日益激烈的全球竞争中实现较高的效率。内部治理因素对合作社效率的影响是至关重要的。其中，社员结构及素质、经理(管理者)的人力资本是关键。在一定意义上，合作社效率的提高过程就是社员和经理(管理者)不断提高自身素质和能力的过程。当然，一定的理事会成员规模与监事会(执行监事)的监督也有利于合作社效率的提高。制度环境、资源环境和市场环境等外部环境通过作用于合作社的内部治理要素，影响合作社的资源配置与利用，进而影响到合作社效率。因此，一个能够实现投入产出效率目标的合作社必须依赖于内部治理机制与外部环境的协调配合运行。

　　从政策层面来看，向社员(包括经理)投资是提高合作社效率的关键。具体而言，可以通过教育和培训方式提高社员的人力资本，增强其合作意识、议事能力、管理能力、对环境的反应速度，进而提高合作社效率。此外，有必要考虑外部环境的重要性，除了继续完善相关法律法规，创造一个良好的制度环境外，还应该将区域资源环境考虑进来，根据各地区的资源因素来制定相应的政策，以对合作社的发展产生正向激励作用。

　　[关键词]合作社效率；目标函数；影响因素

　　　Abstract:Efficiency is an everlasting issue which is of special importance to any economic society. In the modern market economy society, inefficiency means losing competitiveness. It is imperative for cooperatives to improve economic efficiency, thus maintaining their competitiveness. Genarally there are two aspects in the concept of cooperative efficiency. On the one hand, it can be understood as cooperative input-output efficiency, which means to obtain maximum output at a certain level of input, or to realize minimum input at a certain level of output. This belongs to internal efficiency for cooperatives. On the other hand, it also can be regarded as external efficiency for cooperatives, which means the comprehensive efficiency of cooperatives in promoting reasonable allocation of social resources among various departments while pursuing internal efficiency. In short, external efficiency refers to cooperatives’ contribution to total welfare in society. However, the external efficiency for cooperatives, in other words, the ideal Pareto optimality, does not exist in reality and it would be difficult to carry on quantitative evaluation. Therefore, it is realistically reasonable for cooperatives to pursue input-output efficiency.

　　The cooperative efficiency is determined by the chosen objective function. Cooperatives with different functions have different objective functions. For example, objective functions for marketing cooperatives and for purchasing cooperatives are different. Identical objective function is the basic premise for measuring cooperative efficiency. It is an accidental phenomenon for cooperatives to realize efficiency because of information asymmetry, poor management etc. Generally inefficiency manifests in cooperatives. Therefore, there is practical significance of adopting effective methods to measure cooperative efficiency accurately and in discussing profound reasons affecting the efficiency.

　　The influence of scale on cooperative efficiency is obvious. It is generally believed that there exists an optimal scale for each cooperative, with which the cooperative can reach its maximum efficiency. It also should be noted that cooperatives need an appropriate scale, which may grow bigger with the expanding of social-economic scale. Only the cooperative has dynamic adaptability in terms of scale can it achieve higher efficiency in increasingly fierce global competition.

　　Internal control factors have essential impact on cooperative efficiency. Among these factors, staff structure and manager’s human capital are the most important ones. To some extent, the process of improving cooperative efficiency is the process of constantly improving staff and manager’s quality and ability. It is also clear that a certain size of board members and the supervision of certain members from supervisory board can improve cooperative efficiency.

　　The external environments such as institution, resource and market also affect resource allocation and utilization in cooperatives though influencing internal control factors, and then affect cooperative efficiency. Therefore, a cooperative which can achieve input-output efficiency has to rely on the coordinative operation between internal control mechanism and external environments.

　　As far as policy is concerning, investment on staff, including managers, is the key to improve cooperative efficiency. Given the fact that most staff members in Chinese cooperatives have weak cooperative awareness and are incompetent in management, investing on them is especially significant. In particular, the approaches to promote efficiency of cooperatives include improving staff’s human capital by education and training and improving their cooperative awareness, discussion competence, managerial capability, and response to environment.

　　In addition, it is necessary to consider the role of external environments. Besides continuing to perfect relevant laws and regulations and creating a better institutional environment, other factors such as regional resources environment should also be taken into consideration. It is important to adjust policies to accord with different resource factors in different regions in order to produce a positive incentive effect on the development of cooperatives.

　　Key words:cooperatives; efficiency; objective function; influencing factors

　　效率是任何经济组织需要关注的永恒命题。在现代市场经济社会中，没有效率就意味着没有竞争力。20世纪90年代以来，随着我国市场化改革的不断推进，农民专业合作社在我国蓬勃发展。农民专业合作社是指市场经济条件下，“在农村家庭承包经营基础上，同类农产品的生产经营者或者同类农业生产经营服务的提供者、利用者，自愿联合、民主管理的互助性经济组织”。竞争优势是合作社具有生命力的必要条件。因此，合作社对经济效率的追求具有必然性，同时也具有合理性。

　　合作社的效率问题是经济学界长期关注的热点[1-4]。我国学者对合作社效率的讨论已经取得了一些进展，但尚待解释的现象和需要回答的问题仍然很多，更重要的是，还没有形成一个具有解释力的理论分析框架。本文旨在通过总结以往理论研究，为下一步的研究提供一个分析框架，以期对今后合作社效率的理论和实证研究有所帮助。具体而言，本文将讨论的问题包括：什么是合作社效率?如何准确衡量合作社效率?哪些因素影响了合作社效率?如何提高合作社效率?

　　有两个重要问题需要说明一下：(1)本文重点讨论的是农业合作社的投入产出效率；(2)本文既暂不涉及合作社与投资者所有企业(IOF)的效率比较，也不将合作社本身的制度缺陷(如产权不明晰)对其效率的影响作为讨论重点。

　　一、合作社效率的内涵

　　（一）效率的概念

　　探讨合作社效率之前需要厘清建立在理论基础上的经济效率的概念[3]。经济学理论界在效率的内涵方面做了许多研究工作，至今没有对“效率”一词给出确定统一的定义，经济学者往往从不同的角度采用不同的方式对其进行界定。如帕累托提出的帕累托效率为：“对于某种资源的配置，如果不存在其他生产上可行的配置，使得该经济中的所有个人至少和他们的初始时情况一样良好，而且至少有一个人的情况比初始时更好，那么资源配置就是最优的。”[6]帕累托效率标准从资源配置的角度界定效率。萨缪尔森在其《经济学》一书中将“经济效率”定义为“效率意味着不存在浪费，即经济在不减少一种物品生产的情况下，就不增加另一种物品的生产，它的运行便是有效率的，有效率的经济位于其生产可能性边界上”[7]。我国经济学家厉以宁认为效率是资源的有效使用与配置，一定的投入有较多的产出或一定的产出只需要较少的投入，意味着效率的增长[8]。此外，许多经济学者还从经济效率形成的源泉上，将其分为技术效率、配置效率、规模效率、范围效率、X-效率、组织效率等。虽然如此，但从效率的本源意义来看，效率既可以理解成一种追求低投入、高产出的经济行为，还可以认为是一种实现“帕累托最优”的内在能力。（全文见附件）

合作社效率评价：一个理论分析框架