A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.
Volume 14 addresses the central issue of entrepreneurial action: while many factors are important to the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship does not happen until someone takes action!
A pioneering account of the surging global tide of market power—and how it stifles workers around the world In an era of technological progress and easy communication, it might seem reasonable to assume that the world’s working people have never had it so good. But wages are stagnant and prices are rising, so that everything from a bottle of beer to a prosthetic hip costs more. Economist Jan Eeckhout shows how this is due to a small number of companies exploiting an unbridled rise in market power—the ability to set prices higher than they could in a properly functioning competitive marketplace. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research and telling the stories of common workers throughout, he demonstrates how market power has suffocated the world of work, and how, without better mechanisms to ensure competition, it could lead to disastrous market corrections and political turmoil. The Profit Paradox describes how, over the past forty years, a handful of companies have reaped most of the rewards of technological advancements—acquiring rivals, securing huge profits, and creating brutally unequal outcomes for workers. Instead of passing on the benefits of better technologies to consumers through lower prices, these “superstar” companies leverage new technologies to charge even higher prices. The consequences are already immense, from unnecessarily high prices for virtually everything, to fewer startups that can compete, to rising inequality and stagnating wages for most workers, to severely limited social mobility. A provocative investigation into how market power hurts average working people, The Profit Paradox also offers concrete solutions for fixing the problem and restoring a healthy economy.
Based on the observation of economic reality, this book provides for the foundations of a new structure of national payment systems. Specifically, to this end, a rigorous accounting for money transactions, savings, and invested profit is suggested, with a major aim to settle sustainable lending levels. Profit lies at the heart of economic activities. Indeed, companies, from small to large, seek net gains to remunerate shareholders and to increase their assets. Yet, economists are far from sharing a common theory of profit. Using mathematical tools and a discursive approach, this book contributes to the debates in such regard, in the attempt to provide new answers to old economic issues. What is macroeconomic profit? Is there any relationship between wages, lending, and profit? This book is an accesible resource for economists and financial experts as well as global economics students, researchers, academics and historians alike. It will challenge policy-makers and professionals and lead them on a thought-provoking journey through the realm of macroeconomics.
Von Boehm-Bawerk is one of the leading economists of the so-called Austrian school. With Karl Menger and others, he has contributed to the development of a theory of value which has received wide acceptance, and has been the cause of still wider discussion, in the economic world. This theory, as elaborated by Boehm von Bawerk, is based largely upon psychological principles. Its chief feature consists in a searching analysis of ‘subjective value.’ In his “Capital and Interest”, the author makes a brilliant and original study of these two subjects. “The Positive Theory of Capital” is the successor to the work mentioned above.
The international tax system is in dire need of reform. It allows multinational companies to shift profits to low tax jurisdictions and thus reduce their global effective tax rates. A major international project, launched in 2013, aimed to fix the system, but failed to seriously analyse the fundamental aims and rationales for the taxation of multinationals' profit, and in particular where profit should be taxed. As this project nears its completion, it is becomingincreasingly clear that the fundamental structural weaknesses in the system will remain. This book, produced by a group of economists and lawyers, adopts a different approach and starts from first principles in order to generate an international tax system fit for the 21st century. This approach examines fundamental issues of principle and practice in the taxation of business profit and the allocation of taxing rights over such profit amongst countries, paying attention to the interests and circumstances of advanced and developing countries. Once this conceptual framework is developed, the book evaluates the existing system and potential reform options against it. A number of reform options are considered, ranging from those requiring marginal change to radically different systems. Some options have been discussed widely. Others, particularly Residual Profit Split systems and a Destination Based Cash-Flow Tax, are more innovative and have been developed at some length and in depth for the first time in this book. Their common feature is that they assign taxing rights partly/fully to the location of relatively immobile factors: shareholders or consumers.
As self-employment and entrepreneurship become increasingly important in our modern economies, Simon C. Parker provides a timely, definitive and comprehensive overview of the field. In this book he brings together and assesses the large and disparate literature on these subjects and provides an up-to-date overview of new research findings. Key issues addressed include: the impact of ability, risk, personal characteristics and the macroeconomy on entrepreneurship; issues involved in raising finance for entrepreneurial ventures, with an emphasis on the market failures that can arise as a consequence of asymmetric information; the job creation performance of the self-employed; the growth, innovation and exit behaviour of new ventures and small firms; and the appropriate role for governments interested in promoting self-employment and entrepreneurship. This book will serve as an essential reference guide to researchers, students and teachers of entrepreneurship in economics, business and management and other related disciplines.
