Product Description
"An extraordinarily impressive achievement and must reading for all serious students of law, economics, and organization".--Paul L. Joskow, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts of Technology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Why hadn't I heard more about this sooner?
I was searching for something about comparative organizational forms - such as how is Toyota organized differently than GM and how does this benefit them? - when I found this.After searching around, I discovered that Oliver Williamson is both one of the most prolific writers and one of the most cited.Coase's 1937 essay, "The Nature of the Firm", challenged economists to open up the black box that neoclassical economics refers to as "the firm".Williamson responded by creating a whole new tool box for analyzing a wide variety of relationships called the New Institutional Economics (NIE).This book summarizes the state of NIE as of 1985.

The basic outline of NIE is easy to grasp, but shifts the focus of economics from choice to contract.Contractual man, furthermore, is not the perfect maximizer assumed in neoclassical economics.It might help if the reader knows a little about antitrust theory as it applied in the middle of the 20th century to vertical integration since much of this book is dedicated to showing why that theory overlooked the efficiency benefits.Williamson then applies it to the organization of labor (hierarchy vs. team production), unionization, corporate governance, and finally public utility franchise bidding.

While I respect Professor Bainbridge's experience teaching material this difficult, I personally didn't find the writing so bad as to deduct a star.Yes, it is jargon-filled, but this is a specialist's field.Once you learn the vocabulary, it seems to move along at a good pace without suffering from some of the archaic terminology found in law texts.It contains some rather simple math (which the reader can skim without losing anything of the argument).I especially liked how Williamson diagrams the decision-making process.

If you want to know more about why the business world is the way it is, this book will at least provide a new way of thinking if not the actual answers.It proposes and then offers answers to a variety of puzzles, but more importantly it shows how subtle changes in the analysis framework can yield better answers, which I think makes it worthwhile reading.

Very useful for corporate lawyers
As a lecturer in law and economics I have used big chunks of this book as teaching material.Another reviewer commented on the unfortunate writing style.I agree.Williamson is not accessible without significant effort from the reader, and often unnecessarily so.But he is also extremely enlightening.His analysis on contract governance is brilliant, and I have used his schematics on contract structures in both academic and professional life.I advise lawyers who work in the corporate field, particularly in complex contractual arrangements, such as franchises or distribution agreements, to read this book.It is really an eye-opener on why sometimes contracts fail to work as expected.

A classic of new institutional economics
EIoC is a classic work of new institutional economics. In it, Williamson works out his theories of transaction cost economics across an array of interesting economic questions. Most of the covered topics will be of interest not only to economists, but also to lawyers and policymakers. Among other examples, Williamson tackles such subjects as vertical integration, corporate governance, and industrial organizations.

Williamson's core idea is the theory of transaction cost economics. We can analogize transaction costs to friction: they are dead weight losses that reduce efficiency. They make transactions more costly and less likely to occur. Among the most important sources of transaction costs is the limited cognitive power of human decisionmakers. Unlike the Chicago School of law and economics, which posits the traditional concept of rational choice, Williamson asserts that rationality is bounded. Put another way, he assumes that economic actors seek to maximize their expected utility, but also that the limitations of human cognition often result in decisions that fail to maximize utility.Decisionmakers inherently have limited memories, computational skills, and other mental tools, which in turn limit their ability to gather and process information. As he demonstrates, this phenomenon, known as bounded rationality,has pervasive implications for understanding how institutions work.

At the policy level, transaction cost analysis is highly relevant to setting legal rules. Suppose a steam locomotive drives by a field of wheat. Sparks from the engine set crops on fire. Should the railroad company be liable? In a world of zero transaction costs, the initial assignment of rights is irrelevant. If the legal rule we choose is inefficient, the parties can bargain around it. In a world of transaction costs, however, the parties may not be able to bargain. This is likely to be true in our example. The railroad travels past the property of many landowners, who put their property to differing uses and put differing values on those uses. Negotiating an optimal solution will all of those owners would be, at best, time consuming and onerous. Hence, choosing the right rule-which is typically the rule the parties would have chosen if they were able to bargain (the so-called hypothetical bargain)-becomes quite important.

In sum, highly recommended. If so, you might ask, of course, why did I subtract one star? Mainly because of Williamson's unfortunate writing style. Although EIoC is largely free of the recreational mathematics that plagues modern economic writing, which is useful for those of us who flunked Differential Equations, it is very jargon-intensive. Worse yet, much of the jargon is self-created. All of which makes reading Williamson an effort-intensive project. Usually the cost-benefit analysis nevertheless comes out in his favor, but sometimes one puzzles out the jargon to find a rather obvious point that could have been conveyed far more simply. (The business about contracting nodes, pp. 32ff, is a classic example.)

Great for expanded understanding of vertical integration
I came across this book as part of my MBA studies at the Cox School of Business.A professor recommended it for expanded understanding of vertical integration theories.In fact, my professor is cited in the book!I found it to be very valuable and plan to keep it as a reference for years to come! ... Read more

Product Description
The second edition of Antitrust Economics provides a thorough treatment of the economic theory that both motivates (and to varying degrees) guides the design and enforcement of the antitrust laws of the Untied States. Citing relevant legislation and landmark court cases, the text offers a comprehensive analysis of both horizontal and vertical antitrust issues and uses economic theory to evaluate antitrust policy throughout.

The clear, accessible prose in Antitrust Economics explains the theory/policy cycle and provides thorough analysis of market structure and business conduct as they relate to antitrust policy. The text moves fluidly from theory to real world court cases to public policy, making it ideal for upper-level economics majors or law school courses in antitrust law. ... Read more

Product Description
"China's Unfinished Economic Revolution" offers a fundamentally different interpretation of China's economic reform. The common view that China's gradualistic approach has served it well overlooks the fact that state-owned banks for the last two decades have channeled a large share of sharply rising household savings into what are mostly unreformed, money-losing companies. The result is that several of China's largest financial institutions now are insolvent. To avoid a major domestic banking crisis the book argues that China must recapitalize and restructure its domestic banking system and end the long-standing practice of making lending decisions based on political rather than economic criteria. Nicholas Lardy explains that this course will inevitably be costly in political terms, in part because it will lead for a time to a slower rate of economic growth.But the alternative is even le ss attractive--permanently slower growth, continued macroeconomic instability, an inability to meet the expectations of the international community for the opening of its domestic financial markets, and insufficient resources to deal with severe environmental deterioration, growing water shortages, and a rapidly aging population. This timely book also analyzes the new reform initiatives China has launched in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, suggests additional steps that must be taken, and evaluates the implications for U.S. policy. Nicholas R. Lardy is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution. His previous books include China in the World Economy (Institute for International Economics, 1994) and Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978-1990 (Cambridge, 1992). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

needs an update
It is now 8 years since this book came out. China has continued to astonish the world with its rapid growth, which certainly does not exclude its banking system. Under these circumstances, an update of this book would be timely.

The issues discussed are still germane. Though today's numbers would be expected to be larger. As I write this, just a few days ago, a major Chinese bank had a very successful IPO. It appears that the key issue of bad loans is being gradually ameliorated by policies of the major banks and, implicitly, by the Chinese government, through repeated capital injections.

A well researched publication, athough biased in argument.
Firstly, let me say the research Nicholas Lardy has conducted is commendable and a welcome addition to the existing literature. His data sources are vast and highly informative.The major limitation of thispublication is that the central argument is biased. Lardy selects thosedata and pieces of existing literature which support his own view. As aresult, major sections of the literature concerning financial reform intransitional economies are simply ignored or brushed over.Lardy's view isthe typical Western, dare I say "American" argument. Primarily heuses financial criteria to evaluate the economic performance of China'sstate banks. This methodoloy is extremely poor - particularly in thecontext of China's trannsitional economy. Financial criteria are a horribleguide to both internal and allocative economic efficiency. If anyone wouldlike elaboration on this point feel free to email me.In summary, Lardy'sbook is informative and makes for interesting reading. However as a pieceof economic analysis, its usefulness is limited. The major reason for thisis a total lack of economic theory(as indicated by the previous reviewer)which has resulted in a poor methodology.

Timely, critical but not theoretical enough
This timely book by Lardy explains: 1) the intermingling of China's gradualist reform, the inefficiency of SOE and the evolving banking system; 2) the structure and practise of the banking system of China; 3) some ofthe implications of the looming financial crisis in China. It thus servesas a critical and timely piece for readers to gauge what has been wrong forChina and why are the policy implications.There are a few points worthhighlighting. First, the cost of the gradualist reform approach is theresulting inefficiency in SOE and the related banking crisis, a cost whichis usually forgot in the debate on the pace of reform for emerging economy.Second, the relative size of SOE in China, despite all the measures tostimulate private sectors for the past two decades, is still large,particularly from the perspective of bank lending. This has been reducingthe strength of the banks and limiting the availability of funds to privateenterprises. Third, due to the lack of other forms of investment, Chinesebanking system has absorbed most of the saving from the private sector.However, because of the fragile banking system, deposit rate has beenpolitically controlled at a very low level. This is effective taxing theChinese household and subsidising the borrowers, i.e. the inefficient SOE.Forth, related to the third point, liberalisation of capital market willpost a serious threat to the banking system because it will take away thefunding source from the banking system. Fifth, the Asian flu would postlimited short term threat to the Chinese system primarily because it isstill a closed system. However, long term implication is clear and theChinese leaders are aware of the similarity of the Chinese symptoms tothose of the Asian flu.The only problem from this reader perspective isthe level of theoretical underpinning. The piece is full of details in mostof the aspects it is addressing. The missing piece however is that it failsto put the banking crisis into a larger perspective of the transformationof socialist system. Although a full discussion in this aspect may perhapsrequire an entire book itself, a brief discussion seems appropriate giventhat Lardy commented on some of the more theoretical aspect of the study inChapter 5. ... Read more

Product Description

Maurice Potron (1872-1942), a French Jesuit mathematician, constructed and analyzed a highly original, but virtually unknown economic model. This book presents translated versions of all his economic writings, preceded by a long introduction which sketches his life and environment based on extensive archival research and family documents.

Potron had no education in economics and almost no contact with the economists of his time. His primary source of inspiration was the social doctrine of the Church, which had been updated at the end of the nineteenth century. Faced with the ‘economic evils’ of his time, he reacted by utilizing his talents as a mathematician and an engineer to invent and formalize a general disaggregated model in which production, employment, prices and wages are the main unknowns. He introduced four basic principles or normative conditions (‘sufficient production’, the ‘right to rest’, ‘justice in exchange’, and the ‘right to live’) to define satisfactory regimes of production and labour on the one hand, and of prices and wages on the other. He studied the conditions for the existence of these regimes, both on the quantity side and the value side, and he explored the way to implement them.

This book makes it clear that Potron was the first author to develop a full input-output model, to use the Perron-Frobenius theorem in economics, to state a duality result, and to formulate the Hawkins-Simon condition. These are all techniques which now belong to the standard toolkit of economists. This book will be of interest to Economics postgraduate students and researchers, and will be essential reading for courses dealing with the history of mathematical economics in general, and linear production theory in particular.

Product Description
Charting Jamaica's Economic and Social development is an examination of Jamaica's economic history and an analysis of what the fundamental issues are with Jamaica's lack of economic and social development. It makes prescriptions for turning this around to ensure economic growth and social development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Accountonomics
I was present at the book launch...and read the original...it is an excellent book about the history, current status and recommended course for Jamaica's economy...a must read! The author should consider a launch in Florida, South Central and North. ... Read more

Product Description

The book is a textbook in regional economics for undergraduate and graduate students.

A vast amount of theories and models have been developed since the official recognition of regional economics as a distinct branch of economics. In particular, this book focuses on logical and theoretical linkages between different theories and models: both macro and microeconomic; neoclassical and Keynesian.

The evolution of theoretical approaches in regional economics is dealt in the book through the evolution of the concept of space: from physical space, which characterizes location theory, to uniform space (typical of neoclassical and Keynesian approaches ) to diversified-relational space (embedded in local districts and milieu approaches, as well as in the theory of learning regions) to diversified stylised space (as exemplified by the new economic geography and dynamic neoclassical approaches).

Product Description
Considerable work has been done on chaotic dynamics in the field of economic growth and dynamic macroeconomic models during the last two decades. This book considers numerous new developments: introduction of infrastructure in growth models, heterogeneity of agents, hysteresis systems, overlapping models with "pay-as-you-go" systems, keynesian approaches with finance considerations, interactions between relaxation cycles and chaotic dynamics, methodological issues, long memory processes and fractals... A volume of contributions which shows the relevance and fruitfulness of non-linear analysis for the explanation of complex dynamics in economic systems. ... Read more

Product Description
This elaboration of the writings and statements of Milton Friedman is intended to create an economic system that moves the subject along theory-, fact-, and policy-oriented lines. Items directly attributable to Friedman are used in combination with an awareness of the unique breadth of his experience connected to statistical matters, and his work with Wesley C. Mitchell and others. In addition, some of the author's experiences dating back to the 1950s are used to reconstruct theory and bring in some topics Friedman did not consider. ... Read more

Product Description
New sources of data, together with advances in theory, offer the opportunity for a fresh look at old and new questions.This book asks such questions as: did mercantilism cause the American Revolution?; was slavery profitable?; and what were the causes of the Great Depression? Illustrated ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

One of the best economic history books out there
This book gives you a great view of the nation as it develops.Instead of walking you though a timeline it explains in topics so that you have a full understanding of the development in every area.

college textbook
My son needed this textbook for a college class.It arrived really fast, in good condition, as advertised and saved us over $100. compared to the school bookstore price.

A great contribution
This is an exceptionally well-written and analyzed book. The authors are not historians, but economists, yet this still a unique book of economic history. I took a course that used this book and I really enjoyed reading and learning about the economic history of this country, in great part thanks to this book. As a student of history I recommend this book.

American History through an Economic Filter!
If you ever wanted to understand U.S. history on an economic basis, this is the book to read.

It's beautifully written with extensive economic analysis of various aspects and subjects covering U.S. history from the profitability of slavery to continous increasing of the standards of living.

The authors make some striking discoveries (for example, half of all farms in the south had no slaves at all, and yet managed to be as efficient as many which did have slaves) about productivity in the U.S. as new technologies and, in essence, a new economy evolved. The impact improvements in roads had on the economic development of the country is wonderfully detailed.

The author includes multiple tables and detailed explanations as to how they reached their conclusions.

All in all, an excellent book on U.S. history for economic professionals and/or buffs!

If You're Choosing Only One ...
Let me speak here in law teacher mode: if you wanted to read just one book as background for law school, I think perhaps this should be the one. It's a model in terms both of substance and of presentation. In substance, the authors have done an admirable job of summing up the best available knowledge about the economy and how it came to be. In presentation, what they've done is to take an array of technical or specialized studies and to make them accessible to the determined non-specialist.

I remember it in terms of so many wonderful anecdotes. There are the farm girls from Vermont who staffed the mills in Massachusetts until the great Irish immigration drove them back to the farm. There are the restless young men from the prairies who rode the rafts down river to New Orleans, and then set off to see the world. There are the canals that lost all their capital value with the coming of the railroads - but then kept operating anyway, because it was more worthwhile to use them than to tear them up.

This is not, of course, precisely a law book. But it is a book about issues for the law: about slavery, about public land policy, about the structure of industry and finance. The chapters on the Great Depression alone would make a sufficient background for any course in constitutional or administrative law.For the authors, only two words: new edition. ... Read more

Product Description
In this clear and accessible book, an eminent political scientist offers a jargon-free introduction to the market system for all readers, with or without a background in economics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A thoughtful, readable overview of how the market system works


As its subtitle suggestions, this book provides an overview of the workings of the "market system."By this, Lindblom does not merely mean price-making markets, but larger social organizations in which the market plays a key role in ordering society.

Throughout, Lindblom compares markets with non-market coordination such as government, families, and the internal organization of the corporation.He gives us a fair-minded evaluation of each organization's strengths and weaknesses, though his sympathies lie near those of a market-oriented European social democrat.He avoids conclusions, strong evaluations or recommendations, which can be a bit frustrating for the reader at times.

Much of the material will be familiar from readers of Lindblom's previous books.However, this is the most accessible of them - - though the others are pretty accessible too - - so if you're a general reader without a strong economics or social science background this will meet your needs well.

Markets are Human-Created
Lindblom does it again....his lucid, non-technical prose is SO clear and SO logical.He really explains, in relation to human nature as opposed to in relation to political dogma,why market systems are better than command and control systems for creating a society you or I might want to live in....AND he shows why "markets" and "government" are FRIENDS, not ENEMIES....if you truly believe in opportunity for all and a decent life for most....this should be compulsory reading for all college juniors, and for all MBA students.

Good, but a bit too optimistic
Charles Lindblom brings up several interesting issues about the Market System.While I agreed with the basic principles, I had the feeling that he sometimes oversimplified some issues and I was sometimes left with more questions than answers.Specifically, given the current environment of proposed nation building in the Middle East, I attempted (perhaps too ambitiously) to extrapolate his theories to this problem, and thus found Lindblom's explanation of the Market system as a peacekeeping force most interesting, and therefore also most troublesome.

I was hoping to find some understanding of how the implementation of a healthy market system "does not simply flourish in peaceful societies; [but also how] it helps to make those societies peaceful."Also I was interested in how Lindblom defines `peaceful', as I believe the USA may have one of the most effective market systems in the world, yet at least compared to Europe, and in fact many other countries like China with central planning, the USA is far from peaceful (high crime rates, riots etc.).

I found Lindblom's caveat that "the market system makes societies peaceful, but that is not necessarily efficient, equitable, or humane" perplexing. Does, as Lindblom claims, "higher income - and especially growing income - reduce frustration, conflict, and consequent mutual injury, making possible a peaceful and stable political order", and if so can this be projected at an international level to reduce incidents such as 911?Specifically, what can be done in a country like Afghanistan, with an arguably weak market system, which has been at the center of the `Great Game' for so long?Lindblom mentions the success of how "now conspicuously in Asia Q.E.D. The market system makes for social peace"; should Afghanistan attempt to follow the example export oriented example of the Asian Tigers, how would this be possible?

Charles brings up some good points, but probably should read Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations.I think the glass is only half full.And globalization is somehting which our current governmental bodies and supranational organizations are, not yet equipped to deal with.I fear it is a society that small, especially economically challenged nation states fear, perhaps rightly so?This is what will give rise to further clashes of civilizations but not peace.

Tom Anderson
Anderson Analytics, LLC
http://www.andersonanalytics.com

Rubbish
"Professor Lindblom's argument manifests a fundamental misunderstanding of the case for capitalism. Unless some people with money to spend wanted to read books critical of capitalism written by leftist intellectuals, our author would be unable to sell his book. But this does not weaken his claim to the money he is paid for the book: quite the contrary, that very fact is his claim to the money."

"Lindblom's abuse of logic in his argument goes further. Suppose one grants him that because the value of his book in large part depends on the preferences and actions of people besides him, he is not entitled to what people choose to pay him. It hardly follows that it is up to "society" to decide the issue. Lindblom has argued in this way: The value of what someone produces depends on the actions of everyone else, that is, on "the whole system." But this is to reify "the whole system" as if it were a separate entity with rights and entitlements of its own."

""Do you mean to tell me that in your society, other than a claim to liberty to work for wages and to hold and use assets if you can get any, no one has any claim on anyone else, on government, or on society other than what one can claim by offering something in return. . . . You call yourselves human beings?" (p. 114).

Clearly, the spaceman speaks for our author, who elsewhere bemoans the millions of people who would starve, were the market rule strictly applied. Would not all infants fail to reach adulthood, since they make no market contribution? "[T]he world would lie depopulated in a generation" (p. 120).

I venture to suggest that Lindblom has totally misapprehended the issue. The question is not whether people without assets or marketable skills should starve; of course they should not. But does it help these unfortunates to give them enforceable rights to sustenance? A legal enactment of this kind will not conjure into existence any resources, and these can be obtained only from the productive. Why will the poor fare better if they depend on the state to seize wealth from others, rather than rely on charity? Again Lindblom falls into the fallacy of thinking that a market society contains nothing but market transactions."

"Lindblom is for the most part content to repeat his arguments of fifty years ago. Perhaps in another half-century he will grasp what is wrong with them."

Quote: David Gordon,...

A Calm but Caring Exploration
"Think society, not economy." Thus Lindblom, our author, urges the reader to think about the market system in a more inclusive context than we ordinarily are wont to do. To what end?

Well, the subtitle of this book is "What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It." As he says early on: "For at least 150 years many societies have been trapped in an ill-tempered debate about market systems. Now we have an opportunity to think about these systems with a new dispassion and clarity. Market ideologues have learned that there is little to fear from communism... For their part, socialist ideologues have realized that aspiring for a better society is not enough. They have to face the complexities of constructing one."

One way of bisecting the population is by distinguishing those who see an imperfect world and want to perfect it from those who see an imperfect world and want to live in it as well as its imperfections allow. Charles Lindblom, a professor of economics and political science, is of the first sort. His viewpoints become clear as the book goes along, and he makes no bones about the imperfections of the various market systems and their supporting political systems. At the same time he is not an ideologue, and does not fall into the trap of yearning for a utopia of the right, or of the left.

Basically, he sees the market system as inducing cooperation and preempting violent interaction over a vast range of social interactions. That these take place mostly with money as intermediary does not remove them from the social sphere: it is, he claims, a false distinction to place economic interactions in some separable sphere from social interactions. The real distinction that the market system makes is quid pro quo: interactions between people involve an exchange - of goods for money, of favor for favor, of dinner at your house for (maybe much later) dinner at my house. But the invention of money and credit has made possible society-wide cooperation (the chain of cooperators to get this computer to my desk runs into the millions, or the hundreds of millions, of cooperating humans). For this the market system gets full credit.

But, as we know from the history of the Industrial Revolution (still going on in speeded-up form in some parts of the world), unfettered capitalism (the unregulated market system, in our terminology) is a harsh sorter-out of its participants into a few big winners (the entrepreneurs), a large number of more-or-less-contented employees, and a large number (although, unless the society is in imminent danger of revolution, not so large as the second group) of "losers" for whom the system offers little but grinding toil and early death.

Excepting such as Robert Nozick and Ayn Rand, most people feel the government has a legitimate role in curbing the excesses of the market system and protecting the citizens from each other within it. For it is a particularly transparent sophistry that all participants in the system come to it as roughly equally competent. To consider just one sort of inequality: many participants cannot do the arithmetic (don't even know that there is arithmetic they should be doing!) that would tell them whether they are getting a reasonable value when they buy something on time. Nor, say, do they understand the savage rate of compounding that credit card debt, left unattended, incurs.

The great political schism of our time is not religious, but free-market vs. government intervention. It can take a vast number of forms, and debate can get bogged down in symbolically important issues of little practical consequence while other more important effects are ignored. It is the virtue of this book that it adopts a more neutral terminology ("the market system") and is able to discuss and evaluate a vast range of issues on which sides are taken without demonizing one side or the other.

The weakness of this book is its inconclusiveness. It can't be helped. One can read a book about welfare reform, for example, and come away convinced of the author's prescription, because he has carefully stage-managed his argument to minimize or hide difficulties. Lindblom does not have that luxury: every issue really does have two sides. His general views are not in doubt: the market system is a very good thing; it needs government controls; government can, does, and should use the market system when it can it further the collective goals of the society.

But: how much freedom, of what sort, is enough? Is a command political system that employs market incentives just about as good as democracy? What possible alternatives are there to a market system? What can be done about corporations, these vast engines of production that are increasingly out of the control of the political system?

I enjoyed this book, although I'm not sure what I now know that I didn't already tacitly know. There were a few epiphanies, but they went by so quickly that I suspect I could profit much from a second reading. There are no pictures, charts, or bold-faced claims: the book has no visual aids to highlight its points. The prose is calm, and the arguments for or against a position are spare, with little or no supporting evidence. One reason for this is the high level at which the points are discussed: Lindblom is not making policy, but rather pointing out the wide range of possible answers to many of the vexed questions of the day. One cannot doubt the truth of most of what he says. The question is, what is one to do with it?

If one is a person of the second type, the answer is, nothing. But reformers should be given pause: Perhaps, after reading this book they may be persuaded to make their solutions less sweeping, in keeping with a new appreciation of the subtlety and richness of the problems of organizing a society around a market system that is intertwined with a political system. ... Read more

Product Description
This comprehensive book captures the transition of Asian national innovation systems in the era of the global learning economy.

The success of Asian economies (first Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and, more recently, China and India) has made it tempting to look for ‘an Asian model of development’. However, the strength of Asian development lies less in strategies that reproduce successful national systems of innovation and more in the capacity for institutional change to open up new development trajectories with greater emphasis on knowledge and learning. The select group of contributors demonstrate that although there are important differences among Asian countries in terms of institutional set-ups supporting innovation, government policies and industrial structures, they share common transitional processes to cope with the globalizing learning economy.

With strong implications for policy makers, Asia’s Innovation Systems in Transition will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students as well as national and international policy organizations. ... Read more

Product Description
The first edition of Systems Thinking was the first book to develop a working concept of systems theory and to deal operationally with systems methodology. The author has been working for the last 5 years to incorporate parallel development in quantum theory, self-organizing systems and complexity theory, the sum of which is included in this new 2nd edition. He has tested these concepts with 200 executive MBA students, and also with Russell Ackoff, one of the founding fathers of systems thinking. Ackoff reported that it was the most comprehensive systems methodology he has seen.

The 2nd edition features the synthesis of holistic thinking (iteration of structure, function and process), operational thinking (understanding chaos and complexity), sociocultural systems (movement toward a predefined order), and interactive design (redesigning the future and inventing ways to bring it about).

Also added are the operational thinking and self-organizing aspect of sociocultural systems, with updates made to the holistic thinking and interactive design parts to incorporate recent new developments.

* Cutting edge thinking incorporates the interaction of holistic thinking, operational thinking, sociocultural systems, and interactive design to develop an all inclusive systems methodology
* Companion website built solely to accompany and compliment the new edition available at www.interactdesign.com
* Operational thinking and self organizing aspects of sociocultural systems added anew, with the holistic thinking and interactive design parts updated to incorporate new developments ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

This book is bunk!
Written in the style of a guru preaching to his would-be followers, this book is so full of jargon and nonsense that it is impossible to even build a critical analysis of the content.The author is more interested in pulling the wool over your eyes than teaching you anything.If you are interested in enlightenment through mysticism, this may be the book for you, but those interested in the rigorous application of systems thinking to business would best look elsewhere.

Horrible book!
Okay, let me first say this book is crap!I am a senior in college and have had a 4.0 the entire time and all of a sudden get stuck with having to read this book in one of my business classes.Firstly, this book is extremely confusing to the point where it makes your mind spin and when you get done reading a page you forget everything you read because you were sitting there trying to comprehend what the author was saying.Like several other people have reviewed, it seems as though the author loathes in seeing how confusing he can make sentences, ideas, and theories to the reader instead of making the points clear and understandable.I have read the first two chapters and do not remember hardly anything because of me having to reread some sentences up to ten times; I think I am going to use this book as toilet paper because it is not worth a plug nickel.

An excellent practical guide for business practices...
I have had this book for quite a long time and have read it many times.Each time that I read it I come away with fresh ideas and views on how to apply systems thinking to practical business problems.This book contains a plethora of ideas, views and examples of both good and bad approaches to applying systems thinking to real problems.

I think that every systems engineer should have a copy.Probably all project engineers trying to do NPI in today's fast-paced business environment should also have a copy.I think there is lots of very practical advice and ideas in the book.

The book covers many aspects of systems thinking in business applications from foundations of cybernetics, psychology and philosophy to hands-on approaches to managing teams.

Highly recommended.

Not up to expectations
I could not get the essence of this book.There is not a coherent framework, nor ideas are applied in a way that I would find useful.Please try to peruse a copy before purchasing it - in my case it would not make my first cut through the "search inside" feature.

A True Cipher Key To Business Design / Re-Engineering
This is one of the most important books written in the last 30 years.It is about moving beyond process, synthetic and analytical thinking as singular means of improving business.It is a key to understanding that all of these methods are insufficient on their own as a means of creating optimum results, continuous improvement and business development.

We all understand that in the greatest of companies, musical ensembles, theatre troupes, and sports teams, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.However, we remain mystified by that elusive "chemistry" that actually is the necessary final ingredient needed to move beyond simply being very, very good, and becoming extraordinary.

Dr. Gharajedaghi reveals to us that "chemistry" remains elusive because of the way we see it.He demonstrates that it is not an ingredient that we can insert, but it is a product of the interaction and interdependence of the other ingredients that we are using.Additionally, we learn that the ingredients must be put into the right mixing bowl, or operational environment, which he defines in general terms as "context".

With this book, Professor Gharajedaghi provides us with a very clear understanding as to how chemistry can be created and recreated within any organization, and how to sustain it.This book is a key that will allow you to actually implement process improvement theories such as TQM and Lean, that have been at best a disappointment and at worst a failure in corporate America over the last 20 years.

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In the introductory and concluding chapters this book strive to satisfy the needs of the interested lay reader by addressing the potential, advantages, and costs of solar power plants. For the interested student, scientist, or technically oriented lay person the physical principles of insolation, its variability, concentration, and most efficient use are developed in some detail. Finally, experimental and theoretical developments in the recently created field of solar driven chemistry (via thermal, quantum, or electrical excitation) are described. The contributions in this book are written by leading solar scientists and engineering experts whose extensive background and experience in solar energy lend authenticity and completeness to the book. Design aspects of, and results from large experimental and demonstration plants are described by individuals who were directly involved in the design and testing of many of these plants. Consideration of the viability and future economics of large-scale solar power generation provides an outlook on the energy contributions which can be expected from an optional future supply of abundant and renewable energy, having little impact on the environment. This provides the rationale for the continued commitment to the development of solar power technologies by researchers, engineers, and industry. The eventual depletion of, or future political attacks on our energy supply will have less serious impact once this renewable option is in place. ... Read more

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This book investigates convex multistage stochastic programs whose objective and constraint functions exhibit a generalized nonconvex dependence on the random parameters. Although the classical Jensen and Edmundson-Madansky type bounds or its extensions are generally not available for such problems, tight bounds can systematically be constructed under mild regularity conditions. A nice primal-dual symmetry property is revealed when the proposed bounding method is applied to linear stochastic programs. After having developed the theoretical concepts, exemplary real-life applications are studied. It is shown how market power, lognormal stochastic processes, and risk-aversion can be properly handled in a stochastic programming framework. Numerical experiments show that the relative gap between the bounds can be reduced to a few percent without exploding the problem size.

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Systems Thinkers presents a biographical history of the field of systems thinking, by examining the life and work of thirty of its major thinkers. It discusses each thinker’s key contributions, the way this contribution was expressed in practice and the relationship between their life and ideas. This discussion is supported by an extract from the thinker’s own writing, to give a flavour of their work and to give readers a sense of which thinkers are most relevant to their own interests.

Systems thinking is necessarily interdisciplinary, so that the thinkers selected come from a wide range of areas – biology, management, physiology, anthropology, chemistry, public policy, sociology and environmental studies among others. A significant aim of the book is to broaden and deepen the reader’s interest in systems writers, providing an appetising ‘taster’ for each of the 30 thinkers, so that the reader is encouraged to go on to study the published works of the thinkers themselves.

Customer Reviews (1)

An Instant Education in "Second-Level Laws" and their apps....

This is one of those invaluable books, like Posner and Rudnitsky's "Course Design" or Campbell and Stanley's "Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research", that lays out the foundations of a whole field for your education and delectation in one comprehensive volume.Unlike those classics, this one is a collection of survey pieces on the major contributors to the transdisciplinary field of General Systems "Thinking" (as distinguished from its somewhat more technical parent field, General Systems "Theory").

I'm writing an endless systems-related dissertation, and have acquired and studied dozens of classic works by most of the reviewed authors.Having recently perused this 2009 title at the local university library, I have to recommend it heartily to anyone who is either unfamiliar with the broad notion of "system" or thinks of it as a construct primarily appliable within his or her field of activity alone.

Gerald M. Weinberg, in his must-read classic "Introduction To General Systems Thinking", described the Systems movement (and it is one) as the search for: 1) "second-level laws", or common principles underlying the foundational structures of the various traditional disciplines, and 2) their applications within and among said disciplines.

As a practical bonus of the field's broad scope, its applications are not limited to academia or science and technology, but have potentially *huge* cash value in everyday life as well.

It's all about the primordial complementarity of "whole" and "part" as it applies to "open systems", those pieces-of-interest of the universe-as-a-whole (e.g. atom; metabolic pathway; family budget; judicial branch), as structured within themselves and as interacting with the remainder of reality (the "environment") across a Janus-faced "system boundary".

General or Open Systems' founder, the 1920's-era polymath biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, effectively refuted claims that abstracting to this near-ultimate level was either a vacuous exercise or a restatement of the obvious.On the contrary, he demonstrated that the "open system" model provided a powerful conceptual framework within which to gain and articulate far-reaching insights into the possibilities -- and limitations -- inherent in the problem-solving, a.k.a. solution design, process.

Anyone interested in the wellsprings (often unacknowledged) of many streams of modern thought will find here an instant survey course in the main tenets, issues and evolutionary stages of this exciting and ongoing intellectual adventure.All that plus an invaluable bibliography - basically a compilation of the superb titles in my decades-in-the-discovering reference library!

In sum, just grab this one -- you'll enjoy and benefit immensely, whatever your field(s) of interest...

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Focusing on the formation of the Korean economic system, this book presents a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of economic development outside of the traditional neo-classical, developmental-state and the dependency perspectives. The book examines in detail the evolution of institutions that contributed to economic growth and the formation and the workings of the economic system. With an emphasis on the interaction between government, private institutions (Chaebol and financial institutions) and the influence of Japan, it presents one of the most stimulating and distinctive views of Korean economic development to date. ... Read more

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Kenneth Galbraith has been at the center of the American economy since before the First World War. In this his new book, he offers a distillation of these years in both the public and the private sectors, the academy and the government, and explains where we are and how we got there. Galbraith argues that inherent in our economic system is a continuing divergence between reality and "conventional wisdom," or as he puts it self-serving belief and contrived nonsense, or "fraud." He contends that we observe the current state of the nation in a cloud of myth, believing that stockholders and owners run our corporate world. In reality, it is the management of giant corporations that controls not only the private sector, but also the public sector, too, from politicians, to the Federal Reserve Bank, to the Pentagon.

In a work filled with provocative ideas that come from his years as an astute observer, Galbraith looks at today's economy and America's military actions in Iraq and sees that the gap between myth and reality has never been wider.

Fraud within the American Economy:
The myth of stockholder ownership
The myth of a market economy
The myth of the Federal Reserve System
The myth of two sectors; public and private
The myth that war is justifiableAmazon.com Review
John Kenneth Galbraith has been immersed in economics for most of his long and remarkable life. The purpose of this extended essay is to illuminate examples of "innocent fraud" or the gulf between perception and reality in the modern American economic system--a system he had a hand in creating during his tenure in FDR's administration. Though tackling serious subjects, the book sparkles with wit and sly understatement. "A marked enjoyment can be found in identifying self-serving belief and contrived nonsense," he writes, clearly enjoying himself.

The dominant role of the corporation in modern society is one such form of innocent fraud, and he explains how managers hold the real power in our system, not consumers or shareholders as the image would suggest. Despite the "appearance of relevance for owners," capitalism has given way to corporate bureaucracy--"a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards that verge on larceny."

He also explains how the public realm is effectively controlled by the private sector. The arms industry is but one example of this: "While the Pentagon is still billed as being of the public sector, few doubt the influence of corporate power in its decisions."He also looks at the financial world which "sustains a large, active, well-rewarded community based on compelled but seemingly sophisticated ignorance," and in particular the Federal Reserve System, "our most prestigious form of fraud, our most elegant escape from reality." In essence, Galbraith says that the Fed, for all of its power and prestige, effectively does nothing. And he has little problem with this: "Let their ineffective role be accepted and forgiven."

Both a guide to the present and an aid to shaping the future, this slim, satisfying book is a font of wisdom, conventional and otherwise, from a respected elder statesman in the twilight of his life. --Shawn Carkonen ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Prescient Overview
Galbraith's last book reviews the economic landscape of several years ago...before the meltdown. He's quite open about the failure of liberalism...i.e. the "countervailing power" of the state....to be a balancing force for the public interest against the overwhelming reality of the corporate dominance of the US and world economy. That the corporation spends all of its waking hours, insuring that competition is eliminated, he reminds, is reflected in the fact that Paul Samelson, the Nobel dean of free market analysts, comments that neo-classical economics no longer is able to describe the economics of our times...and hasn't for a generation, so extensive has been the continuing consolidation of economic power.

It is this old American mythology of "free" markets that leads to the compliance of the electorate. Galbraith posits this as THE enduring illusion of American politics...that has yielded the weakest "social contract" of any advanced nation.

I had read this book when it first was published, and it has proven to be prescient. It's very short and to the point book...an easy read...and intended as a review of his major observations, at life's end,...while "sitting in the peanut gallery". Galbraith's point was not to predict, it was to underline that the corporate state...which ensues when the interests of the corporation and that of the state are deemed to be identical...is the dominant economic reality of our times. It's easy to propose that this is an exaggeration...and that what we really have is a hybrid system...and I can accept some of these arguments...for there are many good people in government doing their jobs as intended...and as allowed under law. However my take is that, Galbraith's perspective provides the best explanation for what happens every day, when Americans get up in the morning and go to work.

He also stresses that the power of the mega-corporation to politically influence outcomes is potentially enormous. As is its power to get its way...through the power of mass advertising. Just today, the Supreme Court is reviewing an important case regarding corporate money in politics. Today the Supreme Court with its bevy of "country club" justices, has fully enunciated its clear empathy towards corporate money in campaigns...as a matter of "free speech". It even countervails a century of settled law on the subject. This only further proves Galbraith's point, that the "countervailing power" of the state is not at all seen as a check and balance on the mega-corporation...but as "big brother", dictating outcomes inimical to the corporations "who know what's best"...according to Justice Scalia. To these "conservative" justices, the state is to be tamed to the purposes of the mega-corporations.

All of this supports Galbraith's realistic conclusion that the Corporate State is not likely to be significantly altered in our epoch of world economic history. We can fight for a better social contract...and make some reforms, but the structure of economic reality will remain the same.

Scathing analysis of fraud and corruption
This book by the great American economist John Kenneth Galbraith is a scathing critique of modern society. In it, he wittily demolishes the myths that the market and big business are benign, that minimal intervention, inequality and greed are best for the economy, and that there can be accurate economic forecasts.

He writes, "What prevails in real life is not reality but the current fashion and the pecuniary interest." But in the longer run, reality defeats conventional wisdom.

He describes "the effort to accord the owners, stockholders, shareholders, investors as variously denoted, a seeming role in the enterprise" (and now `stakeholders'). Yet, "the myths of investor authority, of the serving stockholder, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but ... corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards that can verge on larceny." So stock markets and corporate sales fall, yet bonuses soar.

He denounces the folly of relying on cuts in interest rates to bring recovery. As he notes, "Business firms borrow when they can make money and not because interest rates are low." The Federal Reserve Bank's actions were irrelevant, through World War One, the depression, World War Two, and since.

He writes, "The one wholly reliable remedy for recession is a solid flow of consumer demand. Failure in such a flow is a recession. In the United States, especially with stagnation and recession, the lower-income citizen has an acute need for education, health care, a basic family income in one form or another. State and local governments, under the pressure of enhanced demand, cut social outlays. ... The overall effect has been reduced personal and family income and well-being - recession without effective curative action."

Galbraith points out that private firms, massively subsidised by the public, dominate `defence'. He observes, "As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves, predictably, the corporate interest. That is its purpose. It is most important and most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defense establishment, the Pentagon. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget. Also, and much more than marginally, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War."

Of the attack on Vietnam, Galbraith writes, "During all this time the military establishment in Washington was in support of the war. This, indeed, was assumed. It was occupationally appropriate that both the armed services and the weapons industries should accept and endorse hostilities." So also of the attack on Iraq.

Galbraith shares his vast experience in commenting about the current state of the American society
Galbraith has long been one of the leading authorities on world economics; having served in several government positions all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. This book is his response to many of the events in the first years of the twenty-first century, including the debacle of Enron. Drawing on his decades of experience, he puts forward a series of philosophically retrospective comments about the current state of the American political and economic structure.
One of the main points that he makes is one that should be made repeatedly and forcibly. Galbraith was part of the team that evaluated the consequences of the Allied carpet-bombing of Germany in the last years of the Second World War. The inescapable conclusion was that the bombing did not shorten the war by a single day; German war production actually went up throughout the bombing campaign. Therefore, the brutal deaths of hundreds of thousands of German civilians did very little to win the war. Galbraith also points out that the military went to great effort to suppress the report.
Galbraith then notes that the same tactics of massive bombing were also used in Vietnam and with the same results. The only significant consequence of the heavy bombing of North Vietnam was to strengthen their resolve to continue the fight. As reports of significant numbers of civilian casualties in Afghanistan continue to appear on the news, it seems clear that the lessons repeated here by Galbraith have not yet been assimilated.
Although short, this book contains some valuable philosophical wisdom regarding the history of the United States and what lessons should be drawn from it. It is well worth reading.

unsatisfying
This is supposed to be 62 pages, but 5 of those are blank and several more are partially or almost totally blank. This is essentially a pamphlet, but with a hard cover. I don't think it's worth more than $4.

The ideas probably needed expressing, but they are not fleshed out at all, and in at least one case, he wandered away from his point and left me up in the air.

I've enjoyed several of his other books, but this was not one of them -- an unsatisfying read in my opinion.

Economics isn't real science
Galbraith remains the best 20th century economist because he understood that Economics isn't real science.Economists occupy a role that the Catholic Church occupied in Medieval Europe.Most clergy are corrupt or useless or filling some office of prestigious busy work with high qualifications and little talent.But there are a few good ones.Galbraith was one of the good ones. ... Read more

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In the 1990s, institutional and evolutionary economics emerged as one of the most creative and successful approaches in the modern social sciences. This timely reader gathers together seminal contributions from leading international authors in the field of institutional and evolutionary economics including Eileen Appelbaum, Benjamin Coriat, Giovanni Dosi, Sheila C. Dow, Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Uskali Mäki, Bart Nooteboom and Marc R. Tool. The emphasis is on key concepts such as learning, trust, power, pricing and markets, with some essays devoted to methodology and others to the comparison of different forms of capitalism. An extensive introduction places the contributions in the context of the historical and theoretical background of recent developments in economics and the social sciences.

Essential reading for lecturers, researchers, graduates and advanced undergraduates in economics, business studies and sociology, this diverse yet complementary collection of essays will also find a broad readership among those wanting to understand the manifest changes apparent within modern socio-economic systems. ... Read more

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They tell me that it's evolution, well you know
The economics profession is under attack, both externally and internally. For all of it's protestations of being "scientific" it seems to have failed miserably if it's task is to illuminate the workings of the economic system. Economics and meteorology share a similar degree of contempt and disdain as forecasts are widely off the mark and no-one appears to hold any of the practitioners accountable.

The science of economics is seen as remote and disappearing up itself as it becomes more and more abstract and formalistic and divorced from the day to day reality that those of us in the world have to face.

Heretics have abounded for years but it is only in recent years that the temple of economics appears to be in danger of collapse from internal subsidence.

One of the biggest critics has taken the form of a rsurgence of interest in thei ideas of the Institutionalists of whom Thorstein veblen was a major proponent. Characteristically these ideas have combined with more modern analysis and led to the emergence of evolutionary economics. In this volume some of the major theoretical building blocks are examined and their relevance to the current situation established. Crucially their work is placed within a dichotomy of Marxist and Hayekian thought allowing the validity of evolutionary ideas to be established through critical analysis of the two diametrically opposing viewpoints.

This is a very important book, not only for bringing the ideas of the evolutionary economists to a wider audience, but also for those of the other traditions to examine the central tenets of their own theories and see how they hold up to the crticisms levelled against them.

For my own part I am intrigued with the notion of institutions themselves and their establishment as a type of embodied knowledge gained through repeated transactions resulting in a mechanism for reducing transactions costs for future exchange participants. While Hodgson et al have a different interpretation, I am not convinced that their position automatically excludes the notion of institutions created through the establishment of a spontaneous order.

However, I digress. This is a very powerful book which ought to be causing severe shockwaves in the economics establishment such that the high priests of the movement should be considering their positions. I would highly recommend careful study of this book and other works of this movement, but with scepticism. ... Read more

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In China, the decade from 1979 to 1988 witnessed among economists and policymakers an unprecedented willingness to depart from the traditional dogmatic interpretations of socialism and to enter into a discourse aimed at promoting economic reforms and development.Robert C. Hsu, in Economic Theories in China, 1979-1988, systematically explores the substance and logic of the evolution of the most vital economic-reform theories prevalent in China during those years (before the recent slowdown).He also examines and assesses the delicate interaction between these theories and the practical policies of the Chinese government.Hsu's analysis covers the debates over exactly how to combine the market mechanism with socialist planning.Chinese economists argued about how to diversify the ownership system, how to implement price-wage reforms, how to invigorate state-owned enterprises and make them more efficient, and how to develop China's agriculture, industry, and foreign trade.Though Hsu critically dissects the diversity of views and describes the shortcomings that will affect future economic policies and theories, his mood is primarily an affirmation of the new dynamic age of China's economics.This is the first study in English of economic theories of the reform decade in China and the first to comment on the relationship between theoretical and institutional changes.It will be of interest not only to economists, but also to political scientists and China scholars from many other disciplines. ... Read more