Book Description

. . . this collection should be viewed as a pioneering effort. . . this book would most likely serve as a useful quick reference source for students of industrial economics. It can also serve as a valuable point of departure for those who wish to study intellectual developments in a major field in more detail. John Howard Brown, Journal of the History of Economic Thought This work will be indispensable for anyone who undertakes serious scholarly research in industrial organization. With its knowledgeable authors and editors, this book offers us valuable materials, about the work of writers long forgotten and others inadequately recognized, that can contribute much to understanding in the field. William J. Baumol, New York University and Princeton University, US This encyclopaedic work celebrates the scores of leading pioneers who created the modern economic field of industrial organization, at the heart of which lie competition and monopoly, the two great forces that drive modern markets. Their pioneering work has shaped the field s growing research as well as the past, present and future debates in Europe and America over several centuries. This landmark book includes authoritative entries on all the major figures in both Europe and North America. Pioneers of Industrial Organization also reveals how public policies such as antitrust and regulation and deregulation since the 1970s can promote, or impede economic results and progress. Readers will find the intellectual pioneers, the theories and policies, and the debates, in all their variety herein. Some pioneers have been free-market advocates, others have been more protective of popular values, but all have strained to make the economic engine promote more wealth, progress and fairness. This book presents the people, ideas and debates with careful neutrality, and also with clear, concise writing. For all those interested in modern economic progress and its problems, this book provides deep insight as well as great personal colour. It will be an essential source of reference for students, researchers and professors of economics, as well as those concerned with the historical foundations or the conceptual and thematic developments in industrial organization.