Voting in Firms: The Role of Agenda Control, Size and Voter Homogeneity

Lee Benham and Philip Keefer

Economic Inquiry, 1991, vol. 29, issue 4, 706-19

Abstract: Voting is a common feature of most firms. Unrestricted voting, however, can lead to unstable decision-making. The authors find that firms make trade-offs among collective decision-making, production scale, firm structure, and voter characteristics that are consistent with efforts to economize on the costs of voting. Firm responses include agenda control, restrictions to obtain a homogeneous voting population, and limits on firm size. The authors consider three long-surviving producer cooperatives, representing extreme cases of collective decision-making, and find that their organization is sensitive to the costs of voting and to the employment of mechanisms to constrain those costs. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1991
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