Labor-Managed Cooperatives and Private Firms in North Central Italy: An Empirical Comparison
Author(s)
Bartlett, Will; Cable, John; Estrin, Saul; Jones, Derek C.; Smith, Stephen C.
Abstract
There has been extensive theoretical discussion of the expected performance of private businesses which are owned and managed by their workers. At the same time, there have been many empirical analyses, usually case studies, of cooperative enterprises in practice. This article attempts to bridge the gap between the two bodies of literature, first reviewing the theoretical discussion and then testing it against a survey of the actual comparative performance of worker coops and traditional companies in two regions of Italy in 1986-87.
