Productivity, Capital and Labor in Labor-Managed and Conventional Firms
Abstract
Despite a continuing interest in the compared efficiency of labor-managed and conventional firms, only a handful of comparative empirical studies exist. These studies suggest that labor-managed firms have the same productivity levels as conventional ones, but organize production differently. However, the data used in these studies cover a single industry, or firms matched by industry and size in manufacturing, and concern a few dozen firms. In addition, the use of constant-elasticity production functions in past studies has made it difficult to distinguish the effects of incentives embodied in the factors of production from those of scale differences that could be caused by the differences in factor demand behavior between conventional and labor-managed firms hypothesized by economic theory. The paper compares the productivity of labor-managed and conventional firms using two new panel data sets covering several thousand firms from France, including representative samples of conventional firms and all worker cooperatives with 20 employees or more in manufacturing and services. We present Generalized Least Squares (GLS) and Generalized Moments Method (GMM) estimations of translog production functions industry by industry for cooperative and conventional firms and test for the equality of their total factor productivities. We also allow systematic differences in scale and technology to be determined by the ownership form. The translog specification, which allows returns to scale to vary with input levels, makes it possible to disentangle embodied incentive effects from systematic differences in scale due to underinvestment in labor-managed firms. In the process, we also propose updated âstylized factsâ about labor-managed firms in comparison with conventional firms. Our production function estimates suggest that cooperatives are at least as productive as conventional firms. However, the two types of firms organize production differently. Cooperatives are more X-ef(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
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Paper provided by ERMES, University Paris 2 in its series Working Papers ERMES with number 0910.Length:
Date of creation: 2009
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Handle: RePEc:erm:papers:0910
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Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Fathi Fakhfakh & Virginie Perotin & Monica Gago, . "Productivity, Capital and Labor in Labor-Managed and Conventional Firms," Papers 2011-08, TEPP Working Papers.
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Burdín, Gabriel & Dean, Andrés, 2012. "Revisiting the objectives of worker-managed firms: An empirical assessment," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 158-171.
- John Pencavel, 2012.
"Worker Cooperatives and Democratic Governance,"
Discussion Papers
12-003, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
- Pencavel, John, 2012. "Worker Cooperatives and Democratic Governance," IZA Discussion Papers 6932, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
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