Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/333635 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 18196
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Why does capital typically hire labor rather than the other way around? Employee-owned firms with majority workforce control—such as worker cooperatives—remain rare in market economies, despite evidence that they perform at least as well as investor-owned firms across various contexts. In this paper, we examine whether beliefs help explain this puzzle by shaping policy preferences and willingness to work in such organizations. In a preregistered experiment guided by a detailed pre-analysis plan, we randomly exposed 2,000 young adults to information from an international expert survey. Respondents held more pessimistic prior beliefs about worker cooperatives compared to experts. Information exposure led to more optimistic beliefs and increased support for pro-cooperative policies. Text analysis of open-ended responses reveals fewer negative and more positive first-order concerns about cooperatives in the treatment group. We also find suggestive evidence of a relative re-ranking of career intentions in favor of worker cooperatives.
Subjects: 
preferences
employee ownership
cooperatives
information experiment
JEL: 
C91
D83
J24
J54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.