Do sunk costs nip worker-owned firms in the bud?
研究了物质资本和人力资本的沉没成本如何交互影响工人所有制企业和传统企业的进入概率，发现人力资本沉没成本主导而物质资本沉没成本可忽略时，工人所有制企业进入可能性最高。
In this article the author analyzes the interaction effect of the sunk cost of physical capital and of human capital on the entry of worker-owned firms (WOFs) and conventional firms (CFs). The author estimates a logit model and uses a comprehensive dataset of new French firms in manufacturing sectors with proxies of sunk costs defined at the sector level. The results show that the likelihood of WOF entry is the highest when the sunk cost of human capital is dominant while the sunk cost of physical capital is negligible, as predicted by Kazuhiko Mikami and Satoru Tanaka in their 2010 article. The interaction effect between the types of sunk costs is stronger for worker buyouts than for newly created WOFs. These results are robust to different estimation methods and to endogeneity concerns. These results contribute to the general understanding of the rarity of WOFs in manufacturing sectors and are relevant to policy initiatives supporting cooperative modes of firm organization.