Abstract: This paper analyzes the productivity effects of worker participation in management, profit-sharing and worker ownership. It develops an estimating framework and applies it to firm-level data for Italian producer cooperatives, one of the largest and fastest growing systems of producer cooperatives in industrialized Western economies. The results are of particular interest because they provide a systematic test of numerous hypotheses from the literature on incentives and efficiency in participatory and labor-managed firms. Moreover, they may help in formulating public policy guidelines in the numerous Western countries that consider participation, worker ownership of assets and profit-sharing as possible means for increasing workplace democracy, stimulating productivity and reducing unemployment owing to plant shutdowns.

　　Subjects: LABOR productivity; MANAGEMENT -- Employee participation; PROFIT-sharing; EMPLOYEE ownership; PRODUCER cooperatives; ITALY