JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS 19, 125-127 (1994) JACQUES DEFOURNY AND José L. MoNzON Campos, Eds., Economie So- ciale: Entre Economie Capitaliste et Economie Publique. The Third Sec- tor: Cooperative, Mutual, and Nonprofit Organizations. Bruxelles: De Boeck-Wesmael, 1992. 459 pp., no index, 350 Ff. This book is the outgrowth of four years of research, performed under the auspices of the International Center of Research and Information on the Public and Cooperative Economy (CIRIEC), by an international team of 20 scholars coordinated by J. Defourny and J.-L. Monz6n Campos. The team surveyed what is called in France Economie sociale and may otherwise be called the Third Sector. It concerns organizations that belong to neither the traditional private for-profit sector nor the public sector and “subscribe to the following principles: purpose of serving members or the collective rather than profit, independent administration, democratic decision-making pro- cess, priority given to persons and tabour rather than capital in the redistri- bution of revenues” (p. 36). Typically they take the form of cooperative, mutual, or nonprofit organizations. The research, which considers seven West European and two North Ameri- can countries, aimed at identifying which organizations belong effectively to this area and at assessing, by means of economic indicators and statistical data, both their present economic and social importance and their potential for further development. No doubt, this is a huge and worthwhile task, all the more challenging on account of the fact that data are often incomplete and difficult to obtain: official statistics provided by public authorities frequently do not break down according to the delimitation of social economy chosen by the investi- gators; furthermore, some of the factors employed in these organizations and part of their product are often supplied on a voluntary basis and thus their economic value can only be estimated, Fortunately, this did not discourage the authors in their determination to provide a picture as complete and accurate as possible. In all the cases considered, the reader can get a good idea of the significance and relevance of these enterprises. Itis particularly honor- able that the authors, despite the incompleteness and vagueness of the data and of their obvious sympathy for the cooperative idea, do not yield to the temptation to gloss over aspects and developments that are less favorable for their case. (0147-5967/94 $6.00 ‘Copyright © 1994 by Academic Pres, ns [Allright of reproduction im any form rterved. 125126 BOOK REVIEWS What are the results, then, of this investigation? It turns out that it is very hard to give a general assessment equally valid for all the countries consid- ered. The understanding of social economy and its shape, extension, and quality shows a substantial diversity across them. This diversity, in most cases, stems from specific historical and geo-political factors: the consider- able size of the social economy in Québec is in part due to the idea of economic nationalism and a distinct society in North America; the possible future shrinking of this sector in Denmark depends on the intensified com- petition brought about by the Single Market; the strength of the cooperative federations in Belgium is rooted in the solid links with either socialist or christian political groups; and one could go on with examples. ‘An important indicator of the economic importance of the social econ- omy is the market share it controls. Here again the results vary, not only from country to country, but also from market to market. Charitable non- profit organizations, for example, play an important role in the United States whereas this is not the case in the Danish welfare state; cooperatives are usually strongly represented in agriculture whereas they are almost absent in car production. It is thus difficult to assess quantitatively the overall share of the economy occupied by this sector. My own guess, after reading this book, is that, on average, it lies between 5 and 10%. Conclusions vary also regarding future prospects. Whereas the authors trust in a further enlargement of the space covered by social economy for countries like Spain and the UK, for others, like Austria and Denmark, they appear less optimistic. A major problem scems to be an increasing national and international competition, which puts cooperatives under heavy eco- nomic and financial strains; also, in some cases the cooperative identity of these enterprises apparently is weakening, But the same threat of increasing competition gives an incentive to these organizations to close ranks and organize themselves as a major, unified sector, as in fact it already has in France After two introductory papers by J.-L. Monzén Campos and J. Defourny on the general characteristics and the historic development of the social economy, the reports on the individual countries follow: on France by J.-Y. Manoa, D. Rault, and C. Vienney; on the UK by J. Kendall, M. Knapp, R. Paton, and A. Thomas; on Spain by J. Barca Tejeiro and J.-L. Monz6n Campos; on Italy by G. Guerrieri, O, Nazzaro, and A. Zevi; on Belgium by J. Defourny; on Denmark by J. Michelsen; on Austria by S. Orban and R. Schediwy; on the United States by C. Rock and M. Klinedienst; and on Québec by B. Lévesque and M.-C. Malo. ‘The papers are written either in French or in English, most of them in a very clear and careful style. Each is followed by a summary of three to four pages in the other language. It is somewhat of a pity that, in the case when a paper is written in French, the summary in English occasionally reads as if itBOOK REVIEWS 127 were a translation by someone not trained in economics who, therefore, sometimes does not fully capture the point. Ithas not been the intent of the authors to model formally the objects they have been investigating, their interplay with the other parts of the economy, and the behavior of the complete system. This should be done, however, if one wants to understand fully the potential benefits and problems arising from the inclusion of social-economy enterprises in an economic system. But also for this reason the present volume is essential reading; it gives vital information for an adequate and correct modeling of ways of structuring, economic activity which are alternative to the for-profit enterprises and state organizations which still make up the lion’s share in the contemporaneous mixed economies of Western industrialized countries. GERD WEINRICH Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore 20123 Milano, Haly