Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Firms, Nonprofits, and Cooperatives: A Theory of Organizational Choice

Contents:

Author Info

  • Herbst, P.
  • Prüfer, J.

    (Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economics Center)

Abstract

Abstract This paper formalizes the difference between firms, nonprofits, and cooperatives and identifies optimal organizational choice. In a model of quality provision, we find a clear ranking of quality produced: Firms provide lowest and nonprofits highest levels of quality. Efficiency, however, depends on the competitive environment, the decision making process and technology. Cooperatives are optimal when decision making costs are low. Else, cooperatives are increasingly dominated by either nonprofits or firms (depending on the incremental costs of quality production). Finally, changes in the competitive environment affect organizational choice: Increased competition induces a shift towards firm organization and away from nonprofits.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=59501
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center in its series Discussion Paper with number 2007-003.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:dgr:kubtil:2007003

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilec/

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Dow, Gregory K. & Putterman, Louis, 2000. "Why capital suppliers (usually) hire workers: what we know and what we need to know," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 319-336, November.
  2. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-58, December.
  3. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "Not-For-Profit Entrepreneurs," NBER Working Papers 6810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Paul R. Milgrom., 1987. "Employment Contracts, Influence Activities and Efficient Organization Design," Economics Working Papers 8741, University of California at Berkeley.
  5. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1998. "Cooperatives vs. Outside Ownership," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1816, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  6. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 2005. "On the Design of Hierarchies: Coordination versus Specialization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 675-702, August.
  7. Katherine O'Regan, 2005. "Does the Structure and Composition of the Board Matter? The Case of Nonprofit Organizations," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 205-227, April.
  8. Steven Tadelis & Jonathan Levin, 2004. "Profit Sharing and the Role of Professional Partnerships," 2004 Meeting Papers 156, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  9. Patrick Francois, 2002. "Not-for-profit Provision of Public Services," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 02/060, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
  10. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver, 1985. "The Cost and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," CEPR Discussion Papers 70, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  11. Susan Athey & John Roberts, 2001. "Organizational Design: Decision Rights and Incentive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 200-205, May.
  12. Besley, Tim & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2005. "Competition and incentives with motivated agents," Open Access publications from London School of Economics and Political Science http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/, London School of Economics and Political Science.
  13. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
  14. Bilodeau, Marc & Slivinski, Al, 1997. "Rival charities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 449-467, December.
  15. Kuan, Jennifer, 2001. "The Phantom Profits of the Opera: Nonprofit Ownership in the Arts as a Make-Buy Decision," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 507-20, October.
  16. Fabio R. Chaddad & Michael L. Cook, 2004. "The Economics of Organization Structure Changes: a US perspective on demutualization," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 575-594, December.
  17. Roberts, Kevin W. S., 1977. "Voting over income tax schedules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 329-340, December.
  18. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 1996. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1778, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  19. Lakdawalla, Darius & Philipson, Tomas, 2006. "The nonprofit sector and industry performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1681-1698, September.
  20. Propper, Carol & Burgess, Simon & Green, Katherine, 2004. "Does competition between hospitals improve the quality of care?: Hospital death rates and the NHS internal market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1247-1272, July.
  21. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1996. "The Governance of Exchanges: Members' Cooperatives versus Outside Ownership," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 53-69, Winter.
  22. Fama, Eugene F, 1978. "The Effects of a Firm's Investment and Financing Decisions on the Welfare of Its Security Holders," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(3), pages 272-84, June.
  23. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition through Product Differentiation," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13, January.
  24. Chou, Shin-Yi, 2002. "Asymmetric information, ownership and quality of care: an empirical analysis of nursing homes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 293-311, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Prüfer, J., 2007. "Competition and Mergers among Nonprofits," Discussion Paper 2007-82, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
  2. Astrid Coates & Wim Van Opstal, 2009. "The Joys and Burdens of Multiple Legal Frameworks for Social Entrepreneurship. Lessons from the Belgian Case," Working Papers on Social and Co-operative Entrepreneurship 0903, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, HIVA, Cera Centre for Co-operative Entrepreneurship.
  3. Liang, Qiao & Hendrikse, George W. J. & Huang, Zuhui, 2010. "Value added and governance structure: Evidence from the pear industry in China's Zhejiang province," IAMO Forum 2010: Institutions in Transition – Challenges for New Modes of Governance 52708, Leib­niz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO).
  4. Liang, Qiao & Hendrikse, George W. J. & Huang, Zuhui, 2010. "Quality provision and governance structure variety: Pooling versus double markup," IAMO Forum 2010: Institutions in Transition – Challenges for New Modes of Governance 52694, Leib­niz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO).

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dgr:kubtil:2007003

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Corry Stuyts).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.