New institutionalist essays on collective action: Evidence from Bulgarian cooperatives [electronic resource]
說明
175 p
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 59-09, Section: A, page: 3587
Chair: Mieke Meurs
Thesis (Ph.D.)--The American University, 1998
With the collapse of the state socialist regimes of Eastern Europe, agricultural production cooperatives have emerged and flourished despite the theoretical problems of such organizational forms, mainly incentive problems that induce workers to shirk--to "free-ride." This dissertation utilizes adapted models of collective action to explain how cooperatives have overcome problems of free-riding with regard to labor effort provision
In the first essay, the model shows how villagers facing this collective action problem may utilize peer-monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to create incentives within the cooperative that control free-riding. These institutions allow cooperative members to gather important information regarding the work efforts of fellow members, and such information affects the strategies and actions available within the game theoretic model. Further, peer monitoring and enforcement are facilitated by high levels of social cohesion--equality, a shared history of collective action, and repeated interactions within dense social networks. By modeling these institutions into a game that takes place over time, players have access to information from previous periods, and can formulate conditional strategies--"I will cooperate if you cooperate." Within the model, the game structure need not be that of the "prisoner's dilemma," as presented by past models of collective action. The model is empirically tested by case study data collected during a nine month Fulbright Fellowship in Bulgaria
In the second essay, altruistic preferences are added to the model, which shows how villagers facing this collective action problem may be able to draw on shared group affiliations to limit free riding. The model hypothesizes that in villages where equality and a shared history have created a cohesive community, the preferences of an individual cooperative member may be affected by the welfare of other members. With altruism included into member utility functions, members may have incentives to provide higher levels of labor effort to the cooperative. Altruistic preferences, promoted in a cohesive community, can change the theoretical game from a prisoner's dilemma to a game where cooperation is more probable
The third essay is a historical study of the state's support for the institutional transplant of Raiffeisen credit cooperatives in Bulgaria
