2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

A study on the role of the nonprofit and cooperative sector in the market economy

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20530207
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Applied economics
Research Institution	University of Hyogo
Principal Investigator	MIKAMI Kazuhiko University of Hyogo, 経済学部, 教授 (30229653)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	MIZUNO Keizo 関西学院大学, 商学部, 教授 (40229703)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2010
Keywords	経済システム論
Research Abstract	Nonprofit and cooperative firms have often been discussed from historical and conceptual viewpoints so far. In this research project, I attempted to study these types of firms from an analytical standpoint based on economics as a social science. The results obtained in this research project can be summarized as follows. First, I compared several organizational forms of firms in standard microeconomic theory. Second, in this analytical framework, I showed that the sunk costs of physical capital play an important role in the determination of the organizational form of firms. Third, I constructed a model of an alternative economic system based on consumer cooperatives and the market for their membership.

(6 results)