Economic growth in a cooperative economy

Thomas Brzustowski and Francesco Caselli

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We develop and formalise an equilibrium concept for a dynamic economy in which production takes place in worker cooperatives. The concept rules out allocations of workers to cooperatives in which a worker in one cooperative could move to a different cooperative and make both herself and the existing workers in the receiving cooperative better off. It also rules out allocations in which workers in a cooperative would be made better off by some of the other workers leaving. We also provide a minimum-information equilibrium-selection criterion, which refines our equilibrium concept. We illustrate the application of our concept and refinement in the context of an overlapping-generation economy with specific preferences and technology. The cooperative economy follows a dynamic path qualitatively similar to the path followed by a capitalist economy, featuring gradual convergence to a steady state with constant output. However, the cooperative economy features a static inefficiency, in that, for a given aggregate capital stock, firm size is smaller than what a social planner would choose. On the other hand, the cooperative economy cannot be dynamically inefficient and could accumulate capital at a rate that is higher or lower than the capitalist economy. As a result, steady-state income per worker could be higher or lower in the cooperative economy. We also present an illustrative calibration, which quantitatively compares steady-state incomes and welfare in a cooperative and in a capitalist economy.

JEL-codes: J54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2024-11-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme
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Published in Journal of the European Economic Association, 18, November, 2024. ISSN: 1542-4766

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