Firms, Markets and Economic Change: A Dynamic Theory of Business Institutions

Traditonal western forms of corporate organization have been called into question by the success of Japanese keiretsu. Firms, Markets and Economic Change draws on industrial economics, business strategy, and economic history to develop an evolutionary model to show when innovation is best undertaken. The authors argue that innovation is a complex process that defies neat categorization and government policy should be to facilitate change rather than to direct it.

Richard N. Langlois is Professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. His research interests include the economics of organization, the economics of technology, and economic history. He is the editor of Economics as a Process: Essays in the New Institutional Economics (1986) and the lead author of Microelectronics: An Industry in Transition (1988). Paul L. Robertson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Management at University College, University of New South Wales. In recent years, he has taught strategic and project management as well as economic history. In addition to many articles, he is the co-author, with Sidney Pollard, of The British Shipbuilding Industry, 1870-1914 (1979).