Recognition and legal Forms of Social Enterprises in Europe: A Critical Analysis from a Comparative Law Perspective

Antonio Fici

No 1582, Euricse Working Papers from Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises)

Abstract: Social enterprise lawmaking is a growth industry. In the United States alone, over the last few years, there has been a proliferation of state laws establishing specific legal forms for social enterprises. The situation is not different in Europe, where the process began much earlier than in the United States and today at least fifteen European Union member states have specific laws for social enterprise. This article will describe the current state of the legislation on social enterprise in Europe, inquiring into its fundamental role in the development of the social economy and its particular logics as distinct from those of the for-profit capitalistic economy. It will explore the models of social enterprise regulation that seem more consistent with the economic growth inspired by the paradigms of the social economy. It will finally explain why, in regulating and shaping social enterprise, the model of the social enterprise in the cooperative form is to be preferred to that of the social enterprise in the company form.

Keywords: Social enterprise; Social economy; Cooperatives; Comparative law; Non-profit corporate governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K22 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hme, nep-law and nep-sbm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trn:utwpeu:1582

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