On the Neutrality of Asset Ownership for Work Incentives

Dow, Gregory K.

doi:10.1006/jcec.2000.1663

Cited by 23 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The upshot was that I became interested in comparing KMFs and LMFs within a framework where no legally binding contracts existed, so all input contributions or side payments had to be enforced through repeated game mechanisms. In one article of this kind (Dow, 2000, 2018a, ch. 16), I was able to show that there was no difference in work incentives between firms where workers jointly owned the firm's capital stock and firms where the capital stock was owned by an external investor.…”

Section: Opportunism Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The labor-managed firm, Jaroslav Vanek and me

Dow

2020

JPEO

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PurposeThe purpose of this article is to summarize the relationship between the research of Jaroslav Vanek on labor-managed firms (LMFs) and the research of Gregory K. Dow on the same topic.Design/methodology/approachThe article reviews the research of Jaroslav Vanek in the 1970s and explains how this influenced the publications of Gregory K. Dow extending from the 1980s to the present. A particular focus involves Dow's book “The Labor-Managed Firm: Theoretical Foundations” published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. The methodology is to present an intellectual history in narrative form. The scope of the paper is the economic theory of the LMF.FindingsThe article finds that Dow's interest in LMFs was stimulated by Vanek's publications from the early 1970s. However, Dow's publications in the 1980s were motivated to a large degree by efforts to overcome the limitations of Vanek's theory of the LMF, a goal that shaped much of Dow's later research in the field.Originality/valueThe paper illuminates the strong intellectual influence Jaroslav Vanek exerted on the economic theory of the LMF. Readers who want information about the influences on Dow's work may also find it useful.

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Section: Opportunism Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The labor-managed firm, Jaroslav Vanek and me

Dow

2020

JPEO

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“…Other writers used ideas about repeated games to argue that LMFs could achieve efficient effort levels, at least under certain conditions (MacLeod , Putterman and Skillman , Dong and Dow , Dow ). Although work incentives continue to be of interest for the theory of the firm in general, the recent LMF literature seems to have moved away from this topic, perhaps because researchers have become convinced that the LMF has no real liability in this area relative to the KMF.…”

Section: The Present (1993–2017)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Theory of the Labor‐managed Firm: Past, Present, and Future

Dow

2018

Ann Public Coop Econ

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The economic theory of the labor-managed firm dates back 60 years.Here I review the intellectual history of this field, with critical remarks and proposals for future development. The decades of the 1960s-1980s saw a burst of theoretical speculation that generally did not hold up well under empirical scrutiny. By the 1990s, progress on the mainstream theory of the firm was overtaking some of this early research. At the same time, a growing body of econometric work on labor-managed firms was providing new stylized facts for theorists to explain. While the earlier period was characterized by an excess supply of theories relative to facts, more recently the balance has begun to tip in the opposite direction. I close by suggesting new theoretical directions that might shed light on the empirical asymmetries between capital-managed and labor-managed firms.

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