William J. Baumol

Contestable markets and the theory of industry structure

Objectives and Orientation. Industry Structure and Performance in Perfectly Contestable Markets: The Single Product Case. Ray Behavior and Multiproduct Returns to Scale. Cost Concepts Applicable to Multiproduct Cases. The Cost-Minimizing Industry Structure. Input-Price Changes, Cost Functions, And Efficient Industry Structure. Natural Monopoly: Sufficient Conditions for Subaddivity. Monopoly Equilibrium. Equilibrium in the Multiproduct Competitive Industry. Fixed Costs, Sunk Costs, Entry Barriers, Public Goods, And Sustainability of Monopoly. Sustainable Industry Configurations: General Industry Structures in Contestable Markets. Powers of the Market Mechanism. Intertemporal Sustainability. Intertemporal Unsustainability. Toward Empirical Analysis. Toward Application of the Theory. Developments Since the Book. Bibliography. Index.

Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive

The basic hypothesis is that, while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the societys entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities such as innovation and largely unproductive activities such as rent seeking or organized crime. This allocation is heavily influenced by the relative payoffs society offers to such activities. This implies that policy can influence the allocation of entrepreneurship more effectively than it can influence its supply. Historical evidence from ancient Rome, early China, and the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe is used to investigate the hypotheses.

The Transactions Demand for Cash: An Inventory Theoretic Approach

Introduction, 545. — I. A simple model, 545. — II. Some consequences of the analysis, 549. — III. The simple model and reality, 552.

Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive

The basic hypothesis is that, while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the societys entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities such as innovation and largely unproductive activities such as rent seeking or organized crime. This allocation is heavily influenced by the relative payoffs society offers to such activities. This implies that policy can influence the allocation of entrepreneurship more effectively than it can influence its supply. Historical evidence from ancient Rome, early China, and the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe is used to investigate the hypotheses.

The Use of Standards and Prices for Protection of the Environment

In the Pigouvian tradition, economists have frequently proposed the adoption of a system of unit taxes (or subsidies) to control externalities, where the tax on a particular activity is equal to the marginal social damage it generates. In practice, however, such an approach has rarely proved feasible because of our inability to measure marginal social damage.

Entrepreneurship, management, and the structure of payoffs

The Entrepreneur in Economic Theory Entrepreneurship - Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive Enterprising Rent Seeking: The Case of Corporate Takeovers Enterprising Litigation and Entrepreneurs Enmeshed in the Law Innovative Effort and Enterprising Sabotage Innovation as Routine Process and Its Depressing Effect on Profit Models of Optimal Timing of Innovation and Imitation The Rich Mutual Gains from Technology Transfer - Dissemination and the Market Mechanism The Mechanisms of Technology Transfer, I: Enterprising Imitators The Mechanisms of Technology Transfer, II Technology Consortia in Complementary Innovations On Efficiency and the Pricing of Transferred Technology Toward Improved Allocation of Entrepreneurship Epilogue: The Entrepreneur in a Model of Growth.

Formal entrepreneurship theory in economics: Existence and bounds

Abstract Theoretical analysis often can penetrate difficult economic problems in circumstances where common sense is an unreliable guide to decision making. This paper provides some new theoretical problems related to entrepreneurial decisions and behavior. For example, it investigates the optimal timing of the introduction of an innovation. Typically, in practice, innovation is a continuous process. The longer the delay in the transfer of a new product from the R&D facilities to manufacturing and marketing, the more the product is likely to be improved.But that delay also gives competitors an enhanced opportunity to get there first. This paper shows how this trade-off can be analyzed systematically, and yields some surprising results about the optimal decision on the timing of the introduction of the new product.

Convergence of productivity: Cross-national studies and historical evidence

This book is a collection of original articles that view the current state of knowledge about the convergence hypothesis.

Resilience in natural and socioeconomic systems

We, as a society, find ourselves confronted with a spectrum of potentially catastrophic and irreversible environmental problems, for which conventional approaches will not suffice in providing solutions. These problems are characterized, above all, by their unpredictability. This means that surprise is to be expected, and that sudden qualitative shifts in dynamics present serious problems for management. In general, it is difficult to detect strong signals of change early enough to motivate effective solutions, or even to develop scientific consensus on a time scale rapid enough to allow effective solution. Furthermore, such signals, even when detected, are likely to be displaced in space or sector from the source, so that the motivation for action is small. Conventional market mechanisms thus will be inadequate to address these challenges.

Fixed Costs, Sunk Costs, Entry Barriers, and Sustainability of Monopoly

This paper shows that (i) fixed costs of sufficient magnitude assure the existence of a vector of sustainable prices for the products of a natural monopolist—prices making him invulnerable against entry; (ii) nevertheless, fixed costs do not constitute barriers to entry; that is, they need not have undesirable welfare consequences; (iii) indeed, in market forms that we call perfectly contestable large fixed costs are completely compatible with many desirable attributes of competitive equilibrium; (iv) sunk costs do, however, constitute barriers to entry; and (v) finally, the profit and welfare consequences of entry barriers are described formally.