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This book uses economic theory to argue that labor-managed firms are rare due to market failures rather than any inherent organizational defects.
List of contents
Part I. Setting the Stage: 1. The puzzling asymmetry; Part II. Perfection and Symmetry: 2. Profit maximization and control rights; 3. The labor-managed firm in the short run; 4. The labor-managed firm in the long run; 5. The labor-managed firm in general equilibrium; Part III. Imperfection and Asymmetry: 6. Empirical asymmetries (I); 7. Empirical asymmetries (II); 8. The rarity of labor-managed firms; Part IV. Appropriation Problems: 9. Imperfect appropriation; 10. Firm formation with adverse selection; 11. Partnership markets with adverse selection; Part V. Public Good Problems: 12. Collective choice and investor takeovers; 13. Free riding and employee buyouts; Part VI. Opportunism Problems (I): 14. Transaction cost economics; 15. Firm-specific investments; Part VII. Opportunism Problems (II): 16. Asset ownership and work incentives; 17. Capital stocks and labor flows; 18. Honest and dishonest controllers; Part VIII. Synthesis and Agenda: 19. Breaking the symmetry; 20. Policy directions.
About the author
Gregory K. Dow has been Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia since 1995 and chaired the economics department during 2001–6. He has held previous academic positions at the University of Alberta and Yale University, Connecticut. His articles have appeared in the leading journals of the profession, including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy. His previous book Governing the Firm: Workers' Control in Theory and Practice was published by Cambridge in 2003.
Summary
This book uses economic theory to argue that worker-controlled firms are rare due to market failures rather than inherent organizational defects. The book will be of interest to scholarly researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in economics, especially in industrial organization, labor economics, comparative economics, organizational economics, and finance.
Additional text
Advance praise: 'This is a lovely book, and one we have needed for several decades. It offers a genuinely novel perspective on the theory of labor-managed firms, informed at every step by a careful attention to empirical findings and by the institutional makeup of real-world worker cooperatives and employee-owned firms. Dow has spent some thirty years thinking about these issues, and brings his work together in an impressive whole. It will redefine the theoretical and empirical research agendas, as well as providing an invaluable text in support of a postgraduate course on economic democracy.' Virginie Pérotin, University of Leeds
