Purpose This paper aims to provide a theoretical conception that establishes growth rate dynamics for co-operatives and studies Moroccan co-operatives’ start-ups and closures, by analyzing the co-operatives’ growth rate speed of adjustment (SOA). Design/methodology/approach This paper documents the basic patterns of entry and exit flow for agricultural, artisanal, housing and fishery co-operatives; highlights, with econometric tests, whether co-operatives’ growth rate is mean reverting or a unit root random walk; and estimates the growth rate adjustment speed, using a quadratic interval reverting model to capture both the upward and downward speeds of adjustment. Findings The empirical results indicate that co-operatives’ growth rate is significantly mean reverting for all sectors. Also, it concludes that the upward and downward adjustment speeds are significantly different within and between sectors, with negative indicator for artisanal co-operatives. The paper discusses these results, which are of interest to academics and policymakers. Research limitations/implications The study does not investigate the causes of the growth rate SOA. Further, in-depth work with the results of this study would help scholars and policymakers to get close to the accurate research questions that characterize the mean reverting and affects the adjustment processes for Moroccan co-operatives. Practical implications The suggested model – with upward and downward adjustment speeds– could be valuable for policymakers’ strategies on co-operatives’ emergence. Social implications The paper moves policymakers closer to social work and socio-economic trends to explain the empirical regularities of co-operatives’ dynamics. The model could be of value to avoid a volatile rate of entries and exits, to ensure continuity, to avoid fast failure of co-operative memberships and then to achieve the social inclusion. Originality/value The paper provides empirical evidence and results for co-operatives’ start-ups and closures adjustment speed and determines the conditions in which government policy must be clarified and specified. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first empirical analysis for the co-operatives’ SOA over entry and exit dynamics.

The paper discusses the government policy that encourages the emergence of co-operatives and analyzes the co-operatives in light of their growth in number. It establishes a static equilibrium and highlights the co-operatives’ adjustment process (dynamic equilibrium).The methodology/approach consists of the development of a theoretical model, using the Nash equilibrium for the co-operative market, and the determination of a static equilibrium. It presents the data which includes variable measurements for the adjustment process for agricultural, artisanal, and fishery co-operatives in order to analyze the stochastic process of entry-and-exit flow of co-operatives. Accordingly, the paper estimates the co-operatives’ growth index speed of adjustment (SOA) as a function of the mean-reversion Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) process.The theoretical results indicate that co-operatives’ earnings depend on the number of co-operatives, market-demand, and the capacity constraint. They also show that the margin for new entrants is a dynamic gap that especially depends on demand, capacity constraint and the profits. The empirical results indicate that co-operatives growth-index process is significantly mean reverting for all sectors, and the speed of adjustment for artisanal co-operatives is significantly higher than for those in agriculture and the fisheries.

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