The Economics of Business Enterprise: An Introduction to Economic Organisation and the Theory of the Firm Book

To own or not to own? To make or to buy? To franchise or to manage? To contract long or to contract short? To trust or not to trust? To license or not to license? These and other questions are the subject matter of this introduction to the theory of economic organization. This fully updated third edition includes: new developments in the property rights theory of the firm; further extended treatment of co-operative and mutual forms of enterprise; entirely new sections on transactions cost economics and public policy; and new chapters on the economics of privatisation and the regulation of "natural monopoly". In addition, transaction cost, property rights and agency approaches are contrasted, and Austrian and evolutionary criticisms of standard theory are explored. The author applies these theories to a wide range of questions from the choice of piece rates or time rates in contracting to the debate on Anglo-American versus other "varieties of capitalism". Public policy in the fields of regulation and privatisation is also considered using the same framework.Read More