TY - JOUR
T1 - Contracts and cooperation
T2 - The relative failure of the Irish dairy industry in the late nineteenth century reconsidered
AU - Henriksen, Ingrid
AU - McLaughlin, Eoin
AU - Sharp, Paul
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Historical Economics Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/11
Y1 - 2015/11
N2 - Why did the establishment of cooperative creameries in late nineteenth-century Ireland fail to halt the relative decline of her dairy industry compared with other emerging producers? This paper compares the Irish experience with that of the market leader, Denmark, and shows how each adopted the cooperative organizational form, and highlights that an important difference was institutional: specifically, regarding the enforcement of vertically binding contracts. We argue that this failure, combined with a strong proprietary sector which was opposed to cooperation, reinforced the already difficult conditions for dairying in Ireland due to poor social capital.
AB - Why did the establishment of cooperative creameries in late nineteenth-century Ireland fail to halt the relative decline of her dairy industry compared with other emerging producers? This paper compares the Irish experience with that of the market leader, Denmark, and shows how each adopted the cooperative organizational form, and highlights that an important difference was institutional: specifically, regarding the enforcement of vertically binding contracts. We argue that this failure, combined with a strong proprietary sector which was opposed to cooperation, reinforced the already difficult conditions for dairying in Ireland due to poor social capital.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84962050777&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/ereh/hev012
DO - 10.1093/ereh/hev012
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84962050777
SN - 1361-4916
VL - 19
SP - 412
EP - 431
JO - European Review of Economic History
JF - European Review of Economic History
IS - 4
ER -