The Economic Nature of the Firm
The Economic Nature of the Firm

Author: Randall S. Kroszner

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-09-21

Total Pages: 664

ISBN-13: 1316025233

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This book brings together classic writings on the economic nature and organization of firms, including works by Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, and Michael Jensen and William Meckling, as well as more recent contributions by Paul Milgrom, Bengt Holmstrom, John Roberts, Oliver Hart, Luigi Zingales, and others. Part I explores the general theme of the firm's nature and place in the market economy; Part II addresses the question of which transactions are integrated under a firm's roof and what limits the growth of firms; Part III examines employer-employee relations and the motivation of labor; and Part IV studies the firm's organization from the standpoint of financing and the relationship between owners and managers. The volume also includes a consolidated bibliography of sources cited by these authors and an introductory essay by the editors that surveys the new institutional economics of the firm and issues raised in the anthology.

The Theory of Incentives
The Theory of Incentives

Author: Jean-Jacques Laffont

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-12-27

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1400829453

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Economics has much to do with incentives--not least, incentives to work hard, to produce quality products, to study, to invest, and to save. Although Adam Smith amply confirmed this more than two hundred years ago in his analysis of sharecropping contracts, only in recent decades has a theory begun to emerge to place the topic at the heart of economic thinking. In this book, Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort present the most thorough yet accessible introduction to incentives theory to date. Central to this theory is a simple question as pivotal to modern-day management as it is to economics research: What makes people act in a particular way in an economic or business situation? In seeking an answer, the authors provide the methodological tools to design institutions that can ensure good incentives for economic agents. This book focuses on the principal-agent model, the "simple" situation where a principal, or company, delegates a task to a single agent through a contract--the essence of management and contract theory. How does the owner or manager of a firm align the objectives of its various members to maximize profits? Following a brief historical overview showing how the problem of incentives has come to the fore in the past two centuries, the authors devote the bulk of their work to exploring principal-agent models and various extensions thereof in light of three types of information problems: adverse selection, moral hazard, and non-verifiability. Offering an unprecedented look at a subject vital to industrial organization, labor economics, and behavioral economics, this book is set to become the definitive resource for students, researchers, and others who might find themselves pondering what contracts, and the incentives they embody, are really all about.

How Reform Worked in China
How Reform Worked in China

Author: Yingyi Qian

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2017-11-24

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0262342715

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A noted Chinese economist examines the mechanisms behind China's economic reforms, arguing that universal principles and specific implementations are equally important. As China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, economists have tried to understand and interpret the success of Chinese reform. As the Chinese economist Yingyi Qian explains, there are two schools of thought on Chinese reform: the “School of Universal Principles,” which ascribes China's successful reform to the workings of the free market, and the “School of Chinese Characteristics,” which holds that China's reform is successful precisely because it did not follow the economics of the market but instead relied on the government. In this book, Qian offers a third perspective, taking certain elements from each school of thought but emphasizing not why reform worked but how it did. Economics is a science, but economic reform is applied science and engineering. To a practitioner, it is more useful to find a feasible reform path than the theoretically best way. The key to understanding how reform has worked in China, Qian argues, is to consider the way reform designs respond to initial historical conditions and contemporary constraints. Qian examines the role of “transitional institutions”—not “best practice institutions” but “incentive-compatible institutions”—in Chinese reform; the dual-track approach to market liberalization; the ownership of firms, viewed both theoretically and empirically; government decentralization, offering and testing hypotheses about its link to local economic development; and the specific historical conditions of China's regional-based central planning.

Handbook on Business to Business Marketing
Handbook on Business to Business Marketing

Author: Gary L. Lilien

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2012-01-01

Total Pages: 801

ISBN-13: 1781002444

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This insightful Handbook provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of business-to-business marketing. It supplies an overview and pioneers new ideas relating to the activity of building mutually value-generating relationships between organizations Ð from businesses to government agencies to not-for-profit organizations Ð and the many individuals within them. Comprising 38 chapters written by internationally renowned scholars, this Handbook presents perspectives of a variety of issue areas from both an academic and a managerial perspective (state of theory and state of practice). The material in this compendium includes theoretical and practical perspectives in business-to-business marketing, marketing mix and strategy, interfirm relationships, personal selling and sales management, technology marketing, and methodological issues central to business-to-business markets. Published in conjunction with Penn StateÕs Institute for the Study of Business Markets, this extensive volume will expand research and teaching in business-to-business marketing in academia and will improve the practice of business-to-business marketing for firms in the industry. This path-breaking Handbook is targeted primarily at marketing academics and graduate students who want a complete overview of the academic state of the business-to-business marketing domain. It will also prove an invaluable resource for forward-thinking business-to-business practitioners who want to be aware of the current state of knowledge in their domains.

Contract, Governance and Transaction Cost Economics
Contract, Governance and Transaction Cost Economics

Author: Oliver E Williamson

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2017-03-24

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9813202076

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This book brings together a collection of seven papers on Transaction Cost Economics by Nobel Laureate Professor Oliver E Williamson. The applications of Transaction Cost Economics are extensive, ranging from the field of industrial organization and applied fields of economics such as labor, public finance, comparative economic systems and economic development, to the business fields of strategy, organizational behavior, marketing, finance, operations management, and accounting. In short, as Williamson states, "any problem that originates as or can be reformulated as a contracting problem can be examined to advantage in transaction cost economizing terms." What is referred to as New Institutional Economics is developed in the West in two mainly complementary ways: Property Rights Theory, and Transaction Cost Economics. Of the two, Property Rights Theory developed more rapidly. Transaction Cost Economics has nonetheless taken shape of late. In China, research on New Institutional Economics began in the 1990s and has grown rapidly since. China has similarly given much more attention to Property Rights Theory. Gengxuan Chen, the editor of this volume, recommends that China will benefit by bringing Transaction Cost Economics to bear. Simultaneously, for scholars who study the market economy, Transaction Cost Economics provides a very attractive way to explain the practice of the Chinese market economy.

Paying for Performance: An International Comparison
Paying for Performance: An International Comparison

Author: Michelle Brown

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1317463153

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Although performance pay is used in many industrialized nations, the structure and success of this pay system vary widely depending on the institutions, regulatory framework, and legal settings of each country. This book makes the details and effects of these local variations clear for the first time. World-renowned experts on the programs in their respective countries provide in-depth analyses of performance pay in the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Brazil. They draw out common themes across the countries, as well as country-specific determinants of the use of performance pay and its level of success.

Employee Inter- and Intra-Firm Mobility
Employee Inter- and Intra-Firm Mobility

Author: Daniel Tzabbar

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1789735513

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This volume identifies new theoretical and empirical directions to the study of employee mobility, covering broad sets of theoretical frameworks—which are embedded in strategic, organizational, sociological or entrepreneurial theories—and of empirical approaches—which cover industry, firm, team and individual levels of analysis.

The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions
The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions

Author: Jean-Marie Baland

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 786

ISBN-13: 0691191212

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"The essential role institutions play in understanding economic development has long been recognised and has been closely studied across the social sciences but some of the most high profile work has been done by economists many of whom are included in this collection covering a wide range of topics including the relationship between institutions and growth, educational systems, the role of the media and the intersection between traditional systems of patronage and political institutions. Each chapter covers the frontier research in its area and points to new areas of research and is the product of extensive workshopping and editing. The editors have also written an excellent introduction which brings together the key themes of the handbook. The list of contributors is stellar (Steven Durlauf, Throsten Beck, Bob Allen,and includes a diverse mix of Western and non Western, male and female scholars)"

Reward Management
Reward Management

Author: Geoff White

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-13

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1134082983

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This thoroughly revised edition adopts a critical and theoretical perspective on remuneration policy and practices in the UK, from the decline of collective bargaining to the rise of more individualistic systems based on employee performance. It tackles the conceptual issues missing from existing texts in the field of HRM by critically examining the latest academic literature on the topic. Fully updated to cover the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's reward syllabus, and offering a less prescriptive alternative to current texts for HR practitioners and MBA students, this new edition includes: new chapters on executive reward, pensions and benefits clear routes to assist the student reader in the journey through this complex area a strong contextual framework to enable better understanding The second edition of Reward Management is an essential read for all those studying or with an interest in human resource management, performance management and reward.