Based on the proceedings of a conference organised by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Chicago, 1999. The Editors demonstrate, through contributions from business historians and economists, that “advanced research” has superceded the neo‐classical theory of the firm.

Case studies that examine how firms coordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information-information not equally available to all parties-are the focus of this volume.In an ideal world, the market would be the optimal provider of coordination, but in the real world of incomplete...

Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries draws out the underlying economics in business history by focusing on learning processes and the development of competitively valuable asymmetries. The essays show that organizations, like people, learn that this process can be organized more or...

Leading economists and economic historians offer case studies and theoretical perspectives that fill a longstanding gap in the existing literature on technology-driven industrial development, discussing the interaction of finance and technological innovation in the American economy since the...

We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the...