This is a preprint of a paper developing three themes, capital structure, active learning, and spinoffs, with special attention to the Mondragon cooperatives.
Mondragon Business Planning with Labor as a Fixed Cost
December 8, 2012 by
This is an old 1984 study of the 286-paged business planning manual, Plan de Gestion Anual de la Empresa (Annual Management Plan for the Enterprise) of the Empresarial Division of the Caja Laboral Popular, the bank in the Mondragon system of cooperatives. The remarkable thing about the Mondragon method of business planning is that they started with the number of members working in the cooperative and then planned production and sales to keep them on the job during the year.
Lessons of the Moldova ARIA Project
December 8, 2012 by
This paper, coauthored with Vladimir Kreacic, describes a remarkably successful World Bank project in the poorest of the countries of the former Soviet Union. It contains many lessons for development projects elsewhere.
Four Enterprise Creation Schemes: Putting Jane Jacobs to Work
December 8, 2012 by
This note presents policy ideas about entrepreneurship and enterprise creation derived from or, at least, inspired by Jane Jacobs’ writings.
Socialization of Enterpreneurship at Mondragon
December 7, 2012 by
This 1982 paper published by the ICA was the basis for the Harvard Business School case study on Mondragon–with most of the material on socializing entrepreneurship taken out.
Obama needs new job creation ideas
January 29, 2010 by
The Obama economics team seems trapped by rather conventional job-creation ideas, e.g., Keynesian pump-priming or tax breaks for small businesses, ideas whose main virtue is that they are better than the opposition’s ideas of more tax breaks for the rich. But there are other ways to increase job creation and entrepreneurship that have been hindered by the size-maximizing tendencies of American corporations.