Economics, Organization and Management, The
Author: Paul Milgrom, John Roberts
List Price: $132.00
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ISBN: 0132246503
Publisher: Prentice Hall (01 February, 1992)
Sales Rank: 100,044
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
A textbook on the firm.
This book is probably the first textbook on economics of organization. Since published in 1992, it has been widely used in classes. The main framework of the book lies in the conception of the firm as a system of incentive/coordination to allocate efficiently resources. So this book is an extension of neoclassical approach to the area of organization, though such concepts like bounded rationality and transaction cost are incorporated deeply into the architecture of the book. Unlike usual textbooks, this book has the overarching coherence with theoretical depth over various subjects like centralized/decentralized organization, moral hazard, rent, ownership, human resource management, investment, corporate governance. Such consistency is possible for its theoretical position: neoclassical approach. In that stance, the actor is motivated in its rational calculation, in other word incentive, although it¡¯s bounded in terms of information. How to organize such actor into an organization is the problem of coordination in the theory of the firm. Such an approach was widely adopted in the 1980s. But these days, resources/capabilities approach and evolutionary economics dominate the discourse on the firm. Capabilities, resources, dynamic capabilities, organizational learning, routine, tacit knowledge, knowledge creation, those are buzzwords to date. If you are to be specialized in the theory of the firm, this book should be read. But if not, I recommend Besanko, Dranove, and Shanley¡¯s ¡®Economics of Strategy¡¯. It takes trendy approach and that, it explains each subject with live examples from business world.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Possibly the best applied economics text ever.
Bluntly, this is the best university text in economics written in the 1990s. This may also be the best university text in useful economics ever written. You will learn a great deal about getting incentives right, about corporate governance, and about the labor market for managers. Its only flaw is that it overlooks the fact that the tools it teaches, and the arguments it lays out, can be used to formulate a powerful critique of government as well as of the modern corporation. Similar Products
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