Estrutura de capital e desempenho financeiro em cooperativas agropecuárias: análise do nível de endividamento

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between capital structure, with an emphasis on leverage, and the economic performance of Brazilian agricultural cooperatives from 2018 to 2022. A balanced panel dataset of 26 cooperatives is analyzed using linear regression models with and without fixed effects, with return on assets (ROA) employed as a proxy for performance. The explanatory variables considered leverage indicators include total debt, short-term debt, the equity-to-total-assets ratio, and internal capitalization, as well as organizational size and a dummy variable for the COVID-19 period. The results indicate that traditional leverage measures do not exert a statistically significant effect on ROA after controlling for cooperative-specific heterogeneity, whereas organizational size shows a positive, marginally significant association with performance. The dummy variable representing the pandemic period is not statistically significant, suggesting heterogeneous impacts across the analyzed organizations. The strong significance of the fixed effects highlights the relevance of unobserved institutional and organizational factors in explaining economic performance. These findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating the empirical limits of directly applying traditional capital structure theories to the cooperative context and by reinforcing the importance of analytical approaches sensitive to the institutional specificities of these organizations.