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This volume of Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor-Managed Firms marks the third volume in this series to be produced by Elsevier. The two previous volumes, Employee Participation, Firm Performance and Survival, edited by Virginie Perotin and Andrew Robinson, published in 2004, and The Determinants of the Incidence and the Effects of Participatory Organizations, edited by Takao Kato and Jeffrey Pliskin and published in 2003, marked the re-launching of the series. (The series began in 1985. Six volumes appeared during 1985–1995 when the series was published by JAI and was co-edited by Jan Svejnar and Derek C. Jones.)

This volume of Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor Managed Firms is the tenth in the series. The series began in 1985 and until 1998 six volumes appeared. Then the series was published by JAI and Jan Svejnar and I were co-editors. The series was re-launched in 2003 when volume 7 (edited by Takao Kato and Jeffrey Pliskin) appeared as the first volume to be published by Elsevier. Subsequent volumes, both published by Elsevier, were edited by Virginie Perotin and Andrew Robinson (volume 8, 2004) and by Panu Kalmi and Mark Klinedinst (volume 9, 2006.)

This volume of Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor Managed Firms consists of nine original papers grouped together under the title of “Employee Participation, Firm Performance and Survival.” The first four papers explore the growing area of empirical studies of participatory and labor-managed firms’ survival. The second group of three papers offers a number of new approaches and insights into the performance effects of participatory firms, while the final group of papers provides a broad-ranging synthesis and assessment of the experience of employee ownership and participation in transition.

In this paper, we develop, analyze, and test the hypothesis that partial employee ownership may be used as an institutional arrangement to economize on the costly problem of ex post opportunism inherent in the investment of specific human capital. Based on a unique survey of 655 British firms, we examine the empirical link between the likelihood of partial employee ownership and the presence of specific human capital, as well as uncertainty (internal and external) and frequency of transaction. Adjusted for possible structural differences, empirical evidence suggests considerable support for our hypothesis. Our results are also broadly consistent with the Transaction Cost Economics idea that institutional arrangements can be analyzed as transaction cost minimizing choices to govern specific transactions by providing economizing degrees of ex ante incentive compatibility and ex post contractual safeguard.

This volume of Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor Managed Firms marks the second volume in this series to be produced by Elsevier. The previous volume “The Determinants of the Incidence and the Effects of Participatory Organizations” edited by Takao Kato and Jeffrey Pliskin, marked the re-launching of the series. (The series began in 1985. Six volumes appeared during 1985–1995 when the series was published by JAI and was co-edited by Jan Svejnar and Derek C. Jones.)

Looking at data for over a hundred years on democratic economic institutions in the U.S., there seems to be a clear pattern of initiatives growing strongly, peaking and then falling off. The broad range of data used in this paper allows an investigation of these long-range patterns. These institutions show a life-cycle pattern and appear to be filling in more niches in the economy. The connections between different democratic economic institutions across sectors have historically been weak, but there is evidence of umbrella organizations playing a more active role as a supporting structure to encourage growth.

This paper analyses the mechanisms through which profit-sharing schemes may induce debt constrained firms to improve technical efficiency over time to guarantee positive profits. This hypothesis is first formalised in a partial equilibrium framework and then is tested on a sample of Italian traditional and cooperative firms. Technical efficiency change indexes are computed by DEA. These are regressed on a measure of finance constraints to analyse their impact on firms’ efficiency growth. The results support the hypothesis that a restriction in the availability of financial resources can affect positively the growth in efficiency in firms with profit-sharing schemes.