While other parts of the new institutional economics (e. g. principal agent theory,transaction cost theory) have already been applied to co-operative researchwith some success, property rights theory has as yet been only rarelyused in this regard. At the same time, the traditional structure of...

Throughout the developing world, there is a desperate quest for a way out ofthe financial predicament confronting the rural poor. In most countries of thedeveloping regions, especially South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the ruralpopulation forms the larger proportion of the entire population and...

The notion of social entrepreneurship has gained increasing recognition in thelast years, both as an increasingly visible mode of economic action, and as animportant policy tool. The paper outlines a typology that departs from aSchumpeterian view of entrepreneurship, that centers on the creation...

The tasks as well as the types of co-operatives within an economy have continuously been discussed for nearly two hundred years. Since the days of Owen, the principles as well as the appearance of co-operatives have been heavily disputed. This became evident by the controversy between Huber,...