The Theory of the Firm: An Overview of the Economic Mainstream

ISBN-13: 9780367876791 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 212 str.

Paul Walker

Opis

This book firstly offers a brief overview of the past, consisting of a concise discussion of the classical view of production, followed by an outline of the development of the neoclassical - or ‘textbook’ - approach to firm level production. Secondly, the ‘present’ of the theory of the firm is discussed in three sections. The first

Spis treści

Preface and acknowledgments

1 Introduction

2 The ‘past’

2.1 Background

2.2 Neoclassical

2.2.1 Summary

2.3 Behavioural and managerial models

2.3.1 Behavioural models

2.3.2 Managerial models

2.3.3 Summary

2.4 Demsetz and the neoclassical model

2.5 Conclusion

3 The founding works

3.1 Knight - ‘Risk, Uncertainty and Profit’

3.2 Coase - ‘The Nature of the Firm’

3.3 Conclusion

4 The ‘present’

4.1 The post-1970 theories of the firm

4.1.1 Mainstream theories

4.1.1.1 Principal-agent type models

4.1.1.2 Incomplete contracts models

4.1.2 Recent developments within the mainstream

4.1.2.1 The reference point approach

4.1.2.2 Spulber 2009

4.1.2.3 Foss and Klein 2012

4.1.3 Summary

4.2 Reference points, property rights and transaction costs

4.3 The theory of privatisation

4.3.1 Background

4.3.2 Definitions of privatisation

4.3.3 The post-1980 theories of privatisation

4.3.4 Summary

4.4 Conclusion

5 Partial versus general equilibrium

6 Conclusion

O autorze

Paul Walker is an economist in Christchurch, New Zealand. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. His research is mainly on the history of economics and the theory of the firm.