Law and Peace: Contracts and the Success of the Danish Dairy Cooperatives

Ingrid Henriksen, Morten Hviid and Paul Sharp
Additional contact information
Ingrid Henriksen: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen

No 11-11, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: We consider the successful early emergence of cooperative creameries in Denmark in the late nineteenth century within the framework of the ‘new institutional economics’ presented by Williamson (2000). Previous work has focused on the social cohesion of the Danes, but we demonstrate that this was not sufficient for the success. The Danish legal system, which we compare to that of other countries, was also of crucial importance, along with the way in which rules were monitored and enforced. Of particular importance was the Danish cooperatives’ use of contracts, which we explore with evidence from a variety of primary and secondary sources.

Keywords: cooperatives; creameries; contracts; new institutional economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K12 L31 N43 N53 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2011-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/dp_2011/1111.pdf/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Law and Peace: Contracts and the Success of the Danish Dairy Cooperatives (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1111

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics Oester Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Hoffmann ().