This book provides an up-to-date analytical and empirical treatment of some important interactions between paid and unpaid labour and the social economy. The emphasis on the preferences of paid and unpaid labour and on their role in the efficient provision of social services makes a contribution...

This paper analyses the relatively novel concept of a downward-sloping demand for volunteer labour, using data from the Italian social services sector. Both descriptive and econometric evidence shows that the price of volunteer labour (proxied by its shadow price obtained through DEA) is...

This essay attempts to understand the factors determining the satisfaction that volunteers derive from their own activity, and then to compare them with those determining the satisfaction of paid workers. The novelty of this approach is that volunteers and paid workers are compared in the same...

This paper analyses Italian social cooperatives as a typical delivery service firm focusing on employee incentive systems characterized by “role tension” linked to the dual position of being employee and owner at the same time. In line with this idea, the answers to three questions: “Why...

This essay is devoted to investigate the ownership-related wage differentials using a sample of US nursing homes, distinguishing between nonprofit, forprofit and local government organizations. It focuses on within-organization across-occupation wage dispersion, controlling for important factors...

This essay analyses the characteristics and the role of social enterprises in CEE and CIS countries. Following a brief introduction on the relevance of institutional pluralism for economies characterized by poorly developed markets and welfare systems under construction, the importance of social...

Labour supply is seen as an output from household production. Given by the physical effort of a person, working in the market also requires specific inputs. This process may be described with the help of a general technology that comprises joint production. At least one of the outputs is labour...

This paper presents the outcome of a fieldwork carried out in France, Italy, Malta and Spain, with the aim of providing evidence of the main features characterising Fair Trade organizations and the individuals (in particular volunteers) involved in them. The case studies have been selected...

This essay studies the level of trustworthiness across Italian regions in relation to three variables: membership in cultural and recreational associations; membership in ecological, civil rights and peace associations; unpaid participation in voluntary service associations (solidarity...

This essay examines the evidence in favour of different motivations for unpaid labour in volunteer service associations, using an Italian micro data-set constructed by the Italian National Statistical Institute, which allows use of a measure of household income to test the consumption against...