Worker Participation: Lessons from the Worker Co-Ops of the Pacific Northwest. By John Pencavel. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001. Pp. ix, 117. $29.95, cloth; $12.95, paper.
本书对太平洋西北地区木材行业的工人合作社进行理论与实证分析，展示如何用经验数据研究制度差异，适合经济史学者阅读。
John Pencavel is a highly respected labor economist who in this work has written a small gem of new institutional analysis. This book deserves a readership among economic historians because it is a model of how institutional differences can be analyzed empirically. In this work Pencavel undertakes a theoretical and empirical analysis of cooperatives in the lumber industry in the Pacific Northwest. Pencavel begins his work by pointing out that the bargain between employers and workers tends to favor the employer. That is, that labor markets at their most fundamental level are not as efficient as, say, the market for tomatoes. Participants, especially employees, face relatively large search and information costs, which, along with the public-goods aspect of work, means entry and exit does not necessarily lead to optimal outcomes.