IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mir/mirbus/v4y2014i8p34-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cooperatives and Property Rights: Hansmann’s Contribution

Author

Listed:
  • Gaetano Cuomo

    (Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Law, Università di Napoli Federico II, Italy,)

Abstract

Hansmann’s theory explains the success of the traditional investor-owned firm in terms of transaction costs, asserting that the costs of ownership incurred by capitalist are lower with respect to the costs of contracting that other groups of patrons would have to incur for the acquisition of capital, through the instruments available to the market. The relatively low number of worker-owned firms, on the other hand, is mainly explained by the heterogeneity of the interests among the workers in a firm, which would lead to difficulties in taking collective decisions, thus sharply increasing the costs of ownership of this group of patrons. On the other hand, in traditional capitalist firms the inter-ests of the investors would be homogeneous, being aimed simply at maximizing the current value of their capital contribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Gaetano Cuomo, 2014. "Cooperatives and Property Rights: Hansmann’s Contribution," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 4(8), pages 34-43, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:mir:mirbus:v:4:y:2014:i:8:p:34-43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://thejournalofbusiness.org/index.php/site/article/view/584/450
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    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 1119-1158, December.
    3. Henry Hansmann, 2013. "All firms are cooperatives – and so are governments," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 2(2), pages 1-10, January.
    4. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    5. Hansmann, Henry, 1988. "Ownership of the Firm," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 267-304, Fall.
    6. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    7. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    8. B. Jossa, 2007. "La teoria economica delle cooperative di produzione e la possibile fine del capitalismo (di Ferruccio Marzano)," Economia & lavoro, Carocci editore, issue 1, pages 206-206.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaetano Cuomo, 2014. "Cooperatives and Property Rights: Hansmann’s Contribution," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 4(8), pages 34-43, August.
    2. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Power in a Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 387-432.
    3. Leshui He, 2010. "The Ownership of the Firm under A Property Rights Approach," Working papers 2010-23, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    4. 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.
    5. Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta, 2010. "Editors’ Introduction," Chapters, in: Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    7. Dietrich, Diemo & Jindra, Björn, 2010. "Corporate governance in the multinational enterprise: A financial contracting perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 446-456, October.
    8. Bernard Baudry & Virgile Chassagnon, 2012. "The vertical network organization as a specific governance structure: what are the challenges for incomplete contracts theories and what are the theoretical implications for the boundaries of the (hub," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(2), pages 285-303, May.
    9. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, July.
    10. Maloney, Michael T., 2017. "Alchian remembrances," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 561-582.
    11. Magali Fia & Lorenzo Sacconi, 2019. "Justice and Corporate Governance: New Insights from Rawlsian Social Contract and Sen’s Capabilities Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 937-960, December.
    12. Mahoney, Joseph T., 2012. "Towards a Stakeholder Theory of Strategic Management," Working Papers 12-0100, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    13. Ortmann, Gerald F. & King, Robert P., 2006. "Small-Scale Farmers in South Africa: Can Agricultural Cooperatives Facilitate Access to Input and Product Markets?," Staff Papers 13930, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    14. Mark Casson & Nigel Wadeson, 2012. "Internationalisation Theory," Chapters, in: Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret Slade, 2007. "Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries: The Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 629-685, September.
    16. Krishna B. Kumar & Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, "undated". "What Determines Firm Size?," CRSP working papers 496, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    17. Marianne Rubinstein, 2001. "Gouvernement d’entreprise et innovation," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 63(3), pages 211-229.
    18. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    19. Nicolai J. Foss & Peter G. Klein & Lasse B. Lien & Thomas Zellweger & Todd Zenger, 2021. "Ownership competence," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 302-328, February.
    20. Thomas Ehrmann & Karl-Hans Hartwig & Torsten Marner & Hendrik Schmale, 2009. "Specific Investments and Ownership Structures in Railways – An Experimental Analysis," Working Papers 12, Institute of Transport Economics, University of Muenster.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mir:mirbus:v:4:y:2014:i:8:p:34-43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: M Kabir (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csmirus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.