Book Description
"An extraordinarily impressive achievement and must reading for all serious students of law, economics, and organization".--Paul L. Joskow, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts of Technology.
Customer Reviews:
Why hadn't I heard more about this sooner?.......2006-07-17
I was searching for something about comparative organizational forms - such as how is Toyota organized differently than GM and how does this benefit them? - when I found this. After searching around, I discovered that Oliver Williamson is both one of the most prolific writers and one of the most cited. Coase's 1937 essay, "The Nature of the Firm", challenged economists to open up the black box that neoclassical economics refers to as "the firm". Williamson responded by creating a whole new tool box for analyzing a wide variety of relationships called the New Institutional Economics (NIE). This book summarizes the state of NIE as of 1985.
The basic outline of NIE is easy to grasp, but shifts the focus of economics from choice to contract. Contractual man, furthermore, is not the perfect maximizer assumed in neoclassical economics. It might help if the reader knows a little about antitrust theory as it applied in the middle of the 20th century to vertical integration since much of this book is dedicated to showing why that theory overlooked the efficiency benefits. Williamson then applies it to the organization of labor (hierarchy vs. team production), unionization, corporate governance, and finally public utility franchise bidding.
While I respect Professor Bainbridge's experience teaching material this difficult, I personally didn't find the writing so bad as to deduct a star. Yes, it is jargon-filled, but this is a specialist's field. Once you learn the vocabulary, it seems to move along at a good pace without suffering from some of the archaic terminology found in law texts. It contains some rather simple math (which the reader can skim without losing anything of the argument). I especially liked how Williamson diagrams the decision-making process.
If you want to know more about why the business world is the way it is, this book will at least provide a new way of thinking if not the actual answers. It proposes and then offers answers to a variety of puzzles, but more importantly it shows how subtle changes in the analysis framework can yield better answers, which I think makes it worthwhile reading.
Very useful for corporate lawyers.......2004-11-09
As a lecturer in law and economics I have used big chunks of this book as teaching material. Another reviewer commented on the unfortunate writing style. I agree. Williamson is not accessible without significant effort from the reader, and often unnecessarily so. But he is also extremely enlightening. His analysis on contract governance is brilliant, and I have used his schematics on contract structures in both academic and professional life. I advise lawyers who work in the corporate field, particularly in complex contractual arrangements, such as franchises or distribution agreements, to read this book. It is really an eye-opener on why sometimes contracts fail to work as expected.
A classic of new institutional economics.......2001-01-12
EIoC is a classic work of new institutional economics. In it, Williamson works out his theories of transaction cost economics across an array of interesting economic questions. Most of the covered topics will be of interest not only to economists, but also to lawyers and policymakers. Among other examples, Williamson tackles such subjects as vertical integration, corporate governance, and industrial organizations.
Williamson's core idea is the theory of transaction cost economics. We can analogize transaction costs to friction: they are dead weight losses that reduce efficiency. They make transactions more costly and less likely to occur. Among the most important sources of transaction costs is the limited cognitive power of human decisionmakers. Unlike the Chicago School of law and economics, which posits the traditional concept of rational choice, Williamson asserts that rationality is bounded. Put another way, he assumes that economic actors seek to maximize their expected utility, but also that the limitations of human cognition often result in decisions that fail to maximize utility. Decisionmakers inherently have limited memories, computational skills, and other mental tools, which in turn limit their ability to gather and process information. As he demonstrates, this phenomenon, known as bounded rationality, has pervasive implications for understanding how institutions work.
At the policy level, transaction cost analysis is highly relevant to setting legal rules. Suppose a steam locomotive drives by a field of wheat. Sparks from the engine set crops on fire. Should the railroad company be liable? In a world of zero transaction costs, the initial assignment of rights is irrelevant. If the legal rule we choose is inefficient, the parties can bargain around it. In a world of transaction costs, however, the parties may not be able to bargain. This is likely to be true in our example. The railroad travels past the property of many landowners, who put their property to differing uses and put differing values on those uses. Negotiating an optimal solution will all of those owners would be, at best, time consuming and onerous. Hence, choosing the right rule-which is typically the rule the parties would have chosen if they were able to bargain (the so-called hypothetical bargain)-becomes quite important.
In sum, highly recommended. If so, you might ask, of course, why did I subtract one star? Mainly because of Williamson's unfortunate writing style. Although EIoC is largely free of the recreational mathematics that plagues modern economic writing, which is useful for those of us who flunked Differential Equations, it is very jargon-intensive. Worse yet, much of the jargon is self-created. All of which makes reading Williamson an effort-intensive project. Usually the cost-benefit analysis nevertheless comes out in his favor, but sometimes one puzzles out the jargon to find a rather obvious point that could have been conveyed far more simply. (The business about contracting nodes, pp. 32ff, is a classic example.)
Great for expanded understanding of vertical integration.......1997-12-15
I came across this book as part of my MBA studies at the Cox School of Business. A professor recommended it for expanded understanding of vertical integration theories. In fact, my professor is cited in the book! I found it to be very valuable and plan to keep it as a reference for years to come!
Book Description
In this path-breaking book, the author argues that European countries' political-economic policies, practices, and discourses have changed profoundly in response to globalization and Europeanization, but they have not converged. Although national policies may now be more similar, especially where they follow from common European policies, they are not the same. National practices, although moving in the same general direction toward greater market orientation, continue to be differentiable into not just one or even two but three varieties of capitalism. And national discourses that generate and legitimate changes in policies and practices not only remain distinct, they matter. The book is a tour de force which combines sophisticated theoretical insights and innovative methods to show that European countries generally, but in particular Britain, France, and Germany (for which the book provides lengthy case studies), have had very different experiences of economic adjustment, and will continue to do so into the future.
Book Description
This book presents an analysis of the transnational social forces in the making of a new European socio-economic order that emerged out of the European integration process during the 1980s and 1990s. Arguing that the political economy of European integration must be put within the context of a changing global capitalism, Van Apeldoorn examines how European change is linked to global change and how transnational actors mediate these changes.
Book Description
In Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, Marcel Fafchamps synthesizes the results of recent surveys of indigenous market institutions in twelve countries, including Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, and presents findings about economics exchange in Africa that have implications both for future research and current policy. Employing empirical data as well as theoretical models that clarify the data, Fafchamps takes as his unifying principle the difficulties of contract enforcement. Arguing that in an unpredictable world contracts are not always likely to be respected, he shows that contract agreements in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by the absence of large hierarchies (both corporate and governmental) and as a result must depend to a greater degree than in more developed economies on social networks and personal trust. Fafchamps considers policy recommendations as they apply to countries in three different stages of development: countries with undeveloped market institutions, like Ghana; countries at an intermediate stage, like Kenya; and countries with developed market institutions, like Zimbabwe.
Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa caps ten years of personal research by the author. Fafchamps, in collaboration with such institutions as the Africa Division of the World Bank and the International Food Policy Research Institute, participated in the surveys of manufacturing firms and agricultural traders that provide the empirical basis for the book. The result is a work that makes a significant contribution to research on the continuing economic stagnation of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and is also largely accessible to researchers in other fields and policy professionals.
Customer Reviews:
A Former Student of Dr. Hunt.......2007-07-07
Property and Prophets is an excellent exposition of alternative views on capitalism. I enjoyed reading the book for three main reasons:
1) It does a good job explaining the advent of capitalism and how this system differs form it predecessors.
2) It focuses on economics more than economists (as opposed to the Worldly Philosophers).
3) It gives you view of past and modern economic theory and practice that you are unlikely to encounter in mainstream economic books, popular press articles, or lectures.
All that being said the text is somewhat short for all the topics it attempts to touch on; however, no student has ever complained about a required text being a little too short. Also, the book is not a stand-alone introduction to economics. What I mean is the author assumes that readers are at least somewhat familiar with modern neoclassical and Keynesian economics (insert your prefix of choice for the latter). Overall, it does do the intended job of introducing the reader to historical and contemporary radical critiques of capitalism. Economists often forget that our discipline, and capitalism in general, has a difficult time answering some pretty basic ethical, anthropological, and metaphysical questions (let alone the hard ones). So reads this book and ponder some of these issues, you might find answers to them and you might not, but remembers as Voltaire said, "Burning is not answering".
Get his other book "History of Economic Thought".......2004-03-20
I don't recommend this book because his other book, History of Economic Thought, is much more accessible.
The reason is that Property and Prophets is too short for what it wants to cover. I think that the strength of his other book is that, while it is much longer and more expensive, it explains everything, including his approach to understanding ideas historically.
Critique is a Good Thing.......2002-12-04
This book provides an alternative view of the nature of capitalism. Economics is the lap dog of capitalist ideology. This work provides both an alternative approach as well as historical truths and information that help the reader better understand both economics and capitalism.
A Critical Perspective On Capitalism:.......2002-02-11
Hunt's penetrating vision delivers both the history and the ideas, which have shaped our world. This book is of interest to those well read in economic theory as well as those seeking an introduction to how both its defenders and critics have viewed capitalism. Hunt explains the ideas of great economists like Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, Veblen and Keynes while insightfully describing the birth and continued evolution of capitalism. While Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers elevates the economist as the center of attention Hunt's Property and Prophets returns the emphasis to the arguments for and against capitalism.
At the dawn of the 21st century we find ourselves in the midst of a new wave of globalization that has resurrected centuries old debates over the efficacy of markets; those debates are described in this book. Those struggling to put people over profits should reconnect with the centuries of ideological struggle that preceded them and make Hunt's critical perspective required reading.
more leftist propaganda.......2001-11-05
this book is exactly what you would expect of a left-wing self appointed intellectual. the book paints a picture of capitalism as an evil force out to destroy the world. to do so, the author uses the typical scare tactics, half-truths, lies, misquoted authors and thinkers, and his own bizarre facts and fallacies. in doing so, this guy tries to act original, and wants us to think that he has his own ideas, but in attempting to do so just sounds like he's talking down to us common dumb people in true al gore fashion. of particular note is his insistance that mercantilism and capitalism are the same economic system, which is simply stupid.
Average customer rating:
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Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organization
Claude E. Barfield
Manufacturer: American Enterprise Institute Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Exports & Imports
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ASIN: 0844741574 |
Book Description
Well-organized protests turned the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in December 1999 into a widely publicized fiasco. Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy addresses important questions that are being slighted in the controversy over globalization that was sparked by the events in Seattle. The book takes a penetrating look at major challenges to the WTO and the future of trade liberalization. But it also shows how the WTO is moving in a direction at odds with basic democratic principles. No other study addressing these issues takes into account international legal theory and international relations theory along with the more traditional evaluations of international trade policy by political scientists and economists.
Barfield analyzes the structural flaws of the WTO's new dispute resolution system and focuses on the imbalance between the highly efficient judicial arm of the WTO and the inefficient and unwieldy legislative or rule-making capacity. He describes several specific examples of "judicial creativity" on the part of the WTO Appellate Body, details the difficulties presented by particular disputes, and discusses the pressures to introduce "soft" law and customary law as guiding principles to be utilized in WTO dispute settlements.
Barfield caps his trenchant analysis with policy recommendations that set the course for the WTO in the twenty-first century. He argues that the WTO will have to adopt less judicial, more flexible means of resolving disputes, as well as a blocking mechanism for panel decisions that a substantial number of WTO members oppose. He examines and refutes the claims of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and some multinational corporations that they have a presumptive right to participate more directly in the WTO decisionmaking and dispute settlement processes. For the WTO to achieve continued democratic legitimacy, the study argues, it must remain a "government-to-government" organization, one in which governments make decisions only after sorting through and resolving the demands of competing interests in the domestic political process.
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Evolution of Markets and Institutions A Study of an Emerging Economy (Routledge Studies in Development Economics)
Mur Patibandla
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0415339677 |
Book Description
The new institutional economics took its roots in the transaction cost theory of the firm as an economic organization rather than purely a production function. This idea has been developed further by scholars such as Oliver Williamson, Douglas North and their followers, which has led to the rich and growing field of the new institutional economics. This branch of economics stresses the importance of institutions in the functioning of free markets, which include elaborately defined and effectively enforced property rights in the presence of transaction costs, large corporate organizations with agency and hierarchical controls, formal contracts, bankruptcy laws, and regulatory institutions.
Murali Patibandla applies some of the precepts of the new institutional economics to India - one of the world's most promising economies.
Book Description
Mounting hostility to the hegemony of the United States; tumbling stock markets; environmental destruction; sluggish economic growth, unprecedented income inequality, and growing poverty: something fundamental is wrong, argue Petras and Veltmayer. They assert that globalization is a mere euphemism for capitalism in its current global, imperialist projection. They show how resistance to capitalist globalization is being organized among very diverse social sectors, from rural peasants to the middle class in wealthy countries of the North. They conclude their analysis by assessing the possibilities for unifying the diverse forces of opposition to neoliberalism, capitalism and imperialism and the prospects for an alternative socialist form of development.
Customer Reviews:
The challenge to U.S. hegemony.......2004-05-15
"System in Crisis: The Dynamics of Free Market Capitalism" by James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer offers an intelligent and scathing critique of the capitalist state system and an extensive analysis of the myriad grassroots movements that oppose it. The authors posit that the Bush administration has resorted to imperialism as a means of reasserting U.S. control over the world economic system. But by detailing the social, economic and environmental problems that continue to challenge U.S. hegemony, Petras and Veltmeyer believe that U.S. imperialism may be unwittingly accelerating the collapse of capitalism and creating the conditions for a socialist alternative to emerge.
James Petras is a Professor at the State Univesity of New York and Henry Veltmeyer is a Professor at Sanit Mary's University. The collaboration works well in this book. It appears that Dr. Veltmeyer's presence may serve to take some of the sting out of Dr. Petras who is a well-known and prolific writer of sometimes blistering socio-political essays. However, the end result is a no less powerful and intriguing book that is at turns analytical, historical, passionate and persuasive.
The authors begin by challenging postmodern theories about the 'smooth space' of capitalism made popular in the book "Empire" by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri by explaining how the war against terrorism has been used by President Bush to advanced U.S. interests in contested places around the world. But while the open-ended war against terror has been successful in transferring wealth to corporations and the wealthy and has served to intimidate many dissenters, the authors believe that the deficits associated with war combined with the ongoing decline in domestic manufacturing industries suggests that imperialism alone will not restore the U.S. to international preeminence.
We learn that the brand of neoliberalism championed by the U.S., Europe and Israel has caused political and economic instability in dozens of countries, especially in Central and South America. For example, one chapter in the book is dedicated to the massive worker and peasant mobilizations in Argentina that have sought to restore economic and social justice in the wake of that country's dramatic economic collapse. The authors go on to describe how the U.S. has returned to such Cold War shenanigans as military coups, economic blackmail, covert military actions and other tactics in order to repress similar popular uprisings in places such as Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venzuela. The authors contend that these efforts have pushed most world governments to the political Right even as economic deprivation pushes many of their citizens to the Left, thereby "setting the stage for a classic confrontation between dictatorial reaction and revolution".
Other chapters are dedicated to the collapse of the cod industry in the Northern Atlantic, the uprisings of indigenous peoples in Ecuador and Mexico, the struggles of Latin American peasants against the state, the anti-globalization movement, and more. The authors convincingly argue that the state's defense of capital is central to class struggle but that popular "direct and collective action" can empower the people to create better lives for themselves. On the other hand, the authors admit that part of the challenge for the Left is to unite these diverse movements in a way that provides a credible socialist challenge to capitalism.
Recent Socialist electoral victories in Spain and India appears to support the authors' thesis in what may prove to be a remarkably prescient work. Kudos to Zed Books for consistently publishing high-quality materials including this book, which I highly recommend to all.
Book Description
This book argues that there is no single best institutional arrangement for organizing modern societies. Therefore, the market should not be considered the ideal and universal arrangement for coordinating economic activity. Instead, the editors argue, the economic institutions of capitalism exhibit a large variety of objectives and tools that complement each other and can not work in isolation. The various chapters of the book ask what logics and functions institutions follow and why they emerge, mature and persist in the forms they do.
Customer Reviews:
great.......2000-01-08
I have looked at a series of good books on social embedding of economic practices but I kept and am reading only this one. I am interested in the concept in order to apply it to business practices and software development in periphery countries and I needed a broader framework. The book is very clearly written. It practically reads like a novel, if this is something you are interested in. The models in the introductory section diagram constructs that were previously hard for me to pull together coherently. I haven't finished reading the individual author contributions but after the two introductory papers by the editors I have high expectations.
Average customer rating:
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Business And Religion: A Clash of Civilizations? (Conflicts and Trends in Business Ethics)
Manufacturer: M&M Scrivener Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0976404109 |
Book Description
Since the late 1960s American culture has been involved in a struggle to articulate an effective business ethics. The scandals of Enron and WorldCom constitute egregious examples of the absence or deficiency of ethical decision-making in matters of commerce. The purpose of this volume is to inaugurate a dialogue on the common elements of all three Abrahamic traditions - Christianity, Islam, and Judaism - that touch on ethical issues in business. With more than 40 scholars, religious and business leaders joining the debate, this anthology is the beginning of a reconstruction of the understanding of the relationship between religion and commerce.
Main Features: The following questions are addressed:
Is a purely secular business ethics irremediably deficient?
Does a substantive business ethic require a religious and spiritual framework?
To what extent does current business practice reflect a spiritual dimension?
What are the various religious traditions' perspectives on the ethics of commerce?
Can the various religious traditions generate a non-adversarial, consistent, and coherent business ethic?
Is there a role for religion and spirituality in a global and post-modern business world?
Books:
- The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return (The Earth Chronicles)
- The Foundation: A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World
- The Great Crash 1929
- The Great Crash 1929
- The Hand-Sculpted House: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage (The Real Goods Solar Living Book)
- The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials)
- The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation
- The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation
- The Lean Pocket Guide
- The Lean Pocket Guide
Books Index
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The Firm, the Market, and the Law
The Mechanisms of Governance
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution, and Development
Understanding the Process of Economic Change (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
