Italian vs Croatian cooperative system

The aim of this paper is to research legislation, taxes and subvention system of Italian and Croatian cooperatives as well as to compare economic efficiency through individual and aggregate importance of cooperatives. In this paper secondary data source were used, scientific and expert references, policy documents of relevant institutions, laws and strategies. Croatian and Italian cooperative system have different effect on the economy which is identified through basic indicators of cooperative development in both countries. Italy is having more favorable economic indicators in cooperative share in GDP (8,5 vs 0,5), cooperative employees in the total labor force (10,9 vs 0,16), cooperative member in the total population (16,2 vs 1,15), average cooperative employees per cooperative (6,5 vs 2,36), average members per cooperative (230 vs 16) etc. Agricultural cooperatives dominate in the Croatian cooperative sector (40,7), but in comparison with other EU member cooperatives they achieved marginal business results in the production, sale and turnover of agricultural products and compared with Italy (6,3% of agricultural cooperative in total cooperative number) the most significant in recent years are the social cooperativesm what is especially important in crisis. In order to achieve better economic affect through cooperative system Croatia should adopt changes in law regulation, better organization of support center and development of cooperative banking association.