Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist

Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist
Author: George J. Stigler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2003-03-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780226774404

In this witty and modest intellectual autobiography, George J. Stigler gives us a fascinating glimpse into the little-known world of economics and the people who study it. One of the most distinguished economists of the twentieth century, Stigler was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1982 for his work on public regulation. He also helped found the Chicago School of economics, and many of his fellow Chicago luminaries appear in these pages, including Fredrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, and Gary Becker. Stigler's appreciation for such colleagues and his sense of excitement about economic ideas past and present make his Memoirs both highly entertaining and highly educational.

In Defense of Monopoly

In Defense of Monopoly
Author: Richard B. McKenzie
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 554
Release: 2019-02-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0472901141

In Defense of Monopoly offers an unconventional but empirically grounded argument in favor of market monopolies. Authors McKenzie and Lee claim that conventional, static models exaggerate the harm done by real-world monopolies, and they show why some degree of monopoly presence is necessary to maximize the improvement of human welfare over time. Inspired by Joseph Schumpeter's suggestion that market imperfections can drive an economy's long-term progress, In Defense of Monopoly defies conventional assumptions to show readers why an economic system's failure to efficiently allocate its resources is actually a necessary precondition for maximizing the system's long-term performance: the perfectly fluid, competitive economy idealized by most economists is decidedly inferior to one characterized by market entry and exit restrictions or costs. An economy is not a board game in which players compete for a limited number of properties, nor is it much like the kind of blackboard games that economists use to develop their monopoly models. As McKenzie and Lee demonstrate, the creation of goods and services in the real world requires not only competition but the prospect of gains beyond a normal competitive rate of return.

American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly

American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly
Author: Jon Lauck
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2016-02-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 080329526X

The breathtaking number of mergers and joint ventures among agribusiness firms has left independent American farmers facing the power of an increasingly concentrated buying sector. The origin of farmers' concern with such economic concentration dates back to protests against meatpackers and railroads in the late nineteenth century. Jon Lauck examines the dimensions of this problem in the American Midwest in the decades following World War II. He analyzes the nature of competition within meat-packing and grain markets. In addition, he addresses concerns about corporate entry into production agriculture and the potential displacement of a production system defined by independent family farms. Lauck also considers the ability of farmers to organize in order to counter the market power of large-scale agribusiness buyers. He explores the use of farmer cooperatives and other mechanisms which may increase the bargaining power of farmers. The book offers the first serious historical examination of the National Farmers Organization, which fully embraced the bargaining power cause in the postwar period. Lauck finds that independent farmers' attempts at organization have been more successful than previously recognized, but he also shows that their successes have been undermined by the growing concentration and power of agri-business firms, justifying a new approach to antitrust law in agricultural markets.

Monopolized

Monopolized
Author: David Dayen
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2020-06-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1620975424

From the airlines we fly to the food we eat, how a tiny group of corporations have come to dominate every aspect of our lives—by one of our most intrepid and accomplished journalists "If you're looking for a book . . . that will get your heart pumping and your blood boiling and that will remind you why we're in these fights—add this one to your list." —Senator Elizabeth Warren on David Dayen's Chain of Title Over the last forty years our choices have narrowed, our opportunities have shrunk, and our lives have become governed by a handful of very large and very powerful corporations. Today, practically everything we buy, everywhere we shop, and every service we secure comes from a heavily concentrated market. This is a world where four major banks control most of our money, four airlines shuttle most of us around the country, and four major cell phone providers connect most of our communications. If you are sick you can go to one of three main pharmacies to fill your prescription, and if you end up in a hospital almost every accessory to heal you comes from one of a handful of large medical suppliers. Dayen, the editor of the American Prospect and author of the acclaimed Chain of Title, provides a riveting account of what it means to live in this new age of monopoly and how we might resist this corporate hegemony. Through vignettes and vivid case studies Dayen shows how these monopolies have transformed us, inverted us, and truly changed our lives, at the same time providing readers with the raw material to make monopoly a consequential issue in American life and revive a long-dormant antitrust movement.

The Antitrust Paradox

The Antitrust Paradox
Author: Robert Bork
Publisher:
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2021-02-22
Genre:
ISBN: 9781736089712

The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.

The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics

The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics
Author: David R. Henderson
Publisher: Grand Central Pub
Total Pages: 876
Release: 1993-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780446516372

Essays cover basic economic concepts, schools of economic thought, financial markets, and foreign economies

The Myth of Capitalism

The Myth of Capitalism
Author: Jonathan Tepper
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2023-04-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1394184069

The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their pay check to monopolists and oligopolists. The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. The Myth of Capitalism is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone, because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.