The spectacular economic growth experienced by China since 1978 has often been hailed as the "China Miracle". Many economists have tried to understand the forces behind China's phenomenal growth and the explanations can be divided into two broad schools of economic thought - one school of thought which includes Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman explains that market mechanism and deregulation led to China's success, while the other school of thought which include Justin Yifu Lin, the former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank, explains that China's growth miracle is a unique model to itself defined by the Chinese government's prominent role. The Chinese government has been responsible in identifying and investing in industries that have contributed to economic growth. Some economists in the latter school even claim that the China Miracle cannot be explained by mainstream economics. This book examines both schools of thought and attempts to provide a synthesis of the two schools to explain the China Miracle. It looks at the Solow-Swan growth model, the Harrod-Domar model and transaction cost theory. It provides insights into whether and how China can sustain its growth and how developing countries may replicate China's success.

This book makes an original contribution to our knowledge of the world's major defence industries. Experts from a wide range of different countries - from the major economies of North America and Western Europe to developing economies and some unique cases such as China, India, Singapore, South Africa and North Korea - describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the defence industry in that country. Each chapter opens with statistics on a key nation's defence spending, its spending on defence R&D and on procurement over the period 1980 to 2017, allowing for an analysis of industry changes following the end of the Cold War. After the facts of each industry, the authors describe and analyse the structure, conduct and performance of the industry. The analysis of 'structure' includes discussions of entry conditions, domestic monopoly/oligopoly structures and opportunities for competition. The section on 'conduct' analyses price/non-price competition, including private and state funded R&D, and 'performance' incorporates profitability, imports and exports together with spin-offs and technical progress. The conclusion explores the future prospects for each nation's defence industry. Do defence industries have a future? What might the future defence firm and industry look like in 50 years' time? This volume is a vital resource and reference for anyone interested in defence economics, industrial economics, international relations, strategic studies and public procurement.

Through a series of studies, the overarching aim of this book is to investigate if and how the digitalization/digital transformation process affects various welfare services provided by the public sector, and the ensuing implications thereof. Ultimately, this book seeks to understand if it is conceivable for digital advancement to result in the creation of private/non-governmental alternatives to welfare services, possibly in a manner that transcends national boundaries. This study also investigates the possible ramifications of technological development for the public sector and the Western welfare society at large. This book takes its point of departure from the 2016 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report that targets specific public service areas in which government needs to adopt new strategies not to fall behind. Specifically, this report emphasizes the focus on digitalization of health care/social care, education, and protection services, including the use of assistive technologies referred to as "digital welfare." Hence, this book explores the factors potentially leading to whether state actors could be overrun by other non-governmental actors, disrupting the current status quo of welfare services. The book seeks to provide an innovative, enriching, and controversial take on society at large and how various aspects of the public sector can be, and are, affected by the ongoing digitalization process in a way that is not covered by extant literature on the market. This book takes its point of departure in Sweden given the fact that Sweden is one of the most digitalized countries in Europe, according to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), making it a pertinent research case. However, as digitalization transcends national borders, large parts of the subject matter take on an international angle. This includes cases from several other countries around Europe as well as the United States.

Neoclassical economics has been criticized from various angles by orthodox schools. The same can be said about its particular branch: the theory of the firm. This book demonstrates how a successful theory of the firm can be presented without flawed notions of a neoclassical framework and used to comprehend actual business history. The author argues that we should start from the assumption that businesses are inevitably imponderable, as that is their nature, in the process of economic evolution. The book offers an in-depth exploration of neoclassical limitations by examining each of the small details associated with the famous MR = MC rule. It follows a step-by-step approach, which starts off with neoclassical assumptions and then moves into more empirically sound theory, based on modeling logic and rooted in real world examples. The author presents a novel discussion on the size of the firm, both in terms of classifying a firm's expansion and about the factors that limit the size of the firm and argues how formal pricing theory can be built using more indeterminate assumptions about firms. Further, there is a discussion on how firms are rooted in amorphous industries, which helps to explain economic progress better by emphasizing the importance of economic experiments, mistakes and bankruptcies. This is a valuable reference for scholars and researchers who are interested in a range of topics from microeconomics, through pricing theory to industrial organization, history of economic thought and managerial economics.

Have you ever wondered how prices are determined, or why you bought a specific quantity of something? The answers to these and other questions, as well as the theories guiding decisions by consumers and producers, are explained in Microeconomics— a southern African perspective.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to microeconomics theory, offering traditional theories of consumer and producer behaviour set against a contemporary southern African background.

This second edition of Microeconomics – a southern African perspective provides a comprehensive and current introduction to microeconomic theory for the southern African context, while retaining the original ethos from the first edition. It addresses traditional theories of consumer and producer behaviour as prescribed in most introductory microeconomic modules and answers questions around how consumers and producers interact in the market, looking specifically at the choices made by producers in their endeavour to produce optimally.

Suitable for introductory semester-based courses in microeconomics, it facilitates learning through activities and self-evaluation exercises at the end of each chapter, with feedback to activities and answers to the exercises at the end of the book. The study of economics provides the tools for analysis and a framework for thinking that can aid you in making more informed decisions when faced with economic problems, making it suitable for economics students or those requiring an understanding of the economy within a specific financial field.

Alexander Dolgin's Economics of Symbolic Exchange is in reality not one but three books, and although these semantic layers are interlinked, the reader will need to choose between the different vectors and modalities. One clearly evident dimension is research. Certain authors introduce quite new intellectual approaches into scienti?c debate. This requires a special frame of mind and a searching curiosity about social reality. Carl Gustav Jung identi?ed a p- nomenon which he called systematic blindness: when a science reaches a stage of maturity and equilibrium, it categorically refuses, from a sense of self-preservation, to note certain facts and phenomena which it ?nds inconvenient. In Alexander D- gin's book whole complexes of such "non-canonical" material are to be found. Here are just a few examples: ?le exchange networks, through which digital works of art are spread through the Internet; bargain sales of fashionable clothing; the paradox of equal pricing of cultural goods of varying quality; and a discussion of whether - tronage or business has the more productive in?uence on creativity. Obviously, not all the issues Volginraises are totally new, but brought togetherand examinedwithin an elegant logical framework of informational economics, they pose a challenge to scienti?c thinking. Such challenges are by no means immediately or, in some cases, ever acclaimed bythescienti?cestablishment. J. K. Galbraith, forexample, agreatAmericaneco- mist, whose works are read throughout the world, who introduced a whole range of crucially important concepts, the director of John F.

Cost Structure and the Measurement of Economic Performance is designed to provide a comprehensive guide for students, researchers or consultants who wish to model, construct, interpret, and use economic performance measures. The topical emphasis is on productivity growth and its dependence on the cost structure. The methodological focus is on application of the tools of economic analysis - the `thinking structure' provided by microeconomic theory - to measure technological or cost structure, and link it with market and regulatory structure. This provides a rich basis for evaluation of economic performance and its determinants. The format of the book stresses topics or questions of interest rather than the theoretical tools for analysis. Traditional productivity growth modeling and measurement practices that result in a productivity residual often called the `measure of our ignorance' are initially overviewed, and then the different aspects of technological, market and regulatory structure that might underlie this residual are explored. The ultimate goal is to decompose or explain the residual, by modeling and measuring a multitude of impacts that determine the economic performance of firms, sectors, and economies. The chapters are organized with three broad goals in mind. The first is to introduce the overall ideas involved in economic performance measurement and traditional productivity growth analysis. Issues associated with different types of (short and long run, internal and external) cost economies, market and regulatory impacts, and other general cost efficiencies that might impact these measures are then explored. Finally, some of the theoretical, data construction and econometric tools necessary to justify and implement these models are emphasized.

Efficiency is the most important objective in economics and this book shows how it can be analyzed using input and output data at all levels of the economy. After his 'Input-Output Economics: Theory and Applications', Thijs ten Raa has extended his research to efficiency analysis. He has contributed to the microeconomic theory of performance measurement, made applications to industries, national economies and international trade, and written on the history of economic thought. Twenty-five new papers, published in the last decade are now collected and interrelated by an introduction, amounting to a unification of theory and applications in efficiency and input-output analyses.Efficiency analysts measure firm performance relative to the best practice, which is determined by a firm (or collection of firms) operating on the frontier of the production possibilities. More precisely, efficiency is relative productivity, where the latter is essentially output per 'unit' of input. On the other hand, input-output analysts study input per 'unit' of output. The concept of the one is the inverse of the other and this insight will help resolve open issues in either branch of economic science. Environmental objectives are shown to be achievable by reallocations of production. Benchmarking theory is developed and used to measure how well (or poor) industries and economies are organized. Papers on the history of economic thought round out the volume.

This book introduces three innovative concepts and associated financial instruments with the potential to revolutionise real estate finance. The factorisation of commercial real estate with factor-based real estate derivatives is the first concept analysed in this book. Methodological issues pertaining to factors in real estate risk analysis are covered in detail with in-depth academic reference. The book then analyses the digitalisation of commercial real estate. The environment in which buildings operate is changing fast. Cities which used to be made up of inanimate architectural structures are growing digital skins and becoming smarter. Smart technologies applied to the built environment are fundamentally changing buildings' role in cities and their interactions with their occupants. The book introduces the concept of smart space and analyses the emergence of 'digital rights' or property rights for smart buildings in smart environments. It proposes concepts and methods for identifying, pricing, and trading these new property rights which will dominate commercial real estate in the future. Finally, the tokenisation of commercial real estate is explored. Sometimes described as an alternative to securitisation, tokenisation is a new tool in financial engineering applied to real assets. The book suggests two innovative applications of tokenisation: private commercial real estate index tokenisation and data tokens for smart buildings. With factorisation, digitalisation, and tokenisation, commercial real estate is at the forefront of innovations. Real estate's unique characteristics, stemming from its physicality, trigger new ways of thinking which might have a profound impact on other asset classes by paving the way for micro markets. Factor-based property derivatives, digital rights, and tokens embody how commercial real estate can push the boundaries of modern capitalism and, in doing so, move at the centre of tomorrow's smart economies. This book is essential reading for all real estate, finance, and smart technology researchers and interested professionals.

Worldwide, postal operators have been slow to address the threats from and opportunities created by electronic competition. The European Commission and member states are wrestling with these issues, while at the same time continuing to deal with the interrelated issues of implementing entry into postal markets and maintaining the universal service obligation. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 in the U.S. exacerbated financial and managerial problems faced by USPS that result in part from electronic substitution for letter delivery. A major aim of this book is to examine policies to address postal operations in a digital world and ways in which postal operators might reinvent themselves to respond to threats and exploit opportunities. Potential opportunities examined include parcels, e-commerce, digital delivery, regulatory innovations and pricing. This book will be of interest to postal operators, regulatory commissions, consulting firms, competitors and customers, experts in the postal economics, law, and business, and those charged with the responsibility for designing and implementing postal sector policies. Researchers in regulatory economics, transportation technology and industrial organization will also find considerable food for thought in this volume.

Behavioural Economics and Experiments addresses key topics within behavioural economics, exploring vital questions around decision-making and human nature. Assuming no prior knowledge of economics, the book features wide-ranging examples from literature, film, sport, neuroscience and beyond. Ananish Chaudhuri explores the complex relationships between human behaviour, society and decision-making, introducing readers to the latest work on heuristics, framing and anchoring, as well as ideas around fairness, trust and social norms. The book offers a fresh perspective on issues such as: Decision-making under uncertainty Firms' pricing decisions Employment contracts Coordination failures in organizations Preventing bubbles in financial markets This is an ideal introduction for students of behavioural economics, experimental economics and economic decision-making on economics, public policy, psychology and business-related programmes, and will also be accessible to policymakers and curious laymen.

The extraordinary stories of low-income women living in Sao Paulo, industrial case studies and the details of three squatter settlements, and communities in the periphery researched in Simone Buechler's book, Labor in a Globalizing City, allow us to better understand the period of economic transformation in Sao Paulo from 1996 to 2003. Buechler's in-depth ethnographic research over a period of 17 years include interviews with a variety of social actors ranging from favela inhabitants to Wall Street bankers. Buechler examines the paradox of a globalizing city with highly developed financial, service, and industrial sectors, but at the same time a growing sector of microenterprises, degraded labor, considerable unemployment, unprecedented inequality, and precarious infrastructure in its low-income communities. The author argues that informalization and low-income women's labor are an integral part of the global economy. Other countries are continuing to use the same kind of neo-liberal economic model even though once again with the latest global financial crisis, it has proven to be detrimental to many workers.

Gain the knowledge and skills that can help you exploit instability. Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles No book can help you construct foolproof forecasting systems that will ensure youa ll accurately predict economic turning points every time. But with Niemira and Kleina s Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles on hand, youa ll be able to significantly strengthen your ability to measure, monitor, and forecast important fluctuations. Part history, it provides you with essential background material on the characteristics and causes of economic volatility. It offers accessible coverage of the classical business cycle, the five basic types of economic cycles as determined by leading economists, and evolving ideas on the forces driving instability----ranging from simple unicausal theories, more complex Keynesian theory, to new classical macroeconomics. In addition, its concise review of Americaa s economic past highlights the lessons that can be learned from the various cycles experienced since shortly before World War II. Part handbook, Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles presents the full spectrum of statistical techniques used to measure cycles, trends, seasonal patterns, and other vital changes, offering you step--by--step guidance on applying a specific method and detailing its uses and limitations. It goes on to show how you can adapt particular techniques to assess, track, and predict: aeo Industry cycles----including an objective, tailor--made forecasting tool aeo Regional business cycles----including a survey of regional indicators aeo International business cycles----with an international business cycle chronology aeo Inflation cycles----plus "12 little--known facts" about this complex cycle aeo Financial cycles----covering credit, monetary, and interest rate cycles aeo Stock market cycles----with advice on achieving more disciplined trading Based on outstanding scholarship and years of practical experience, Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles will serve as an invaluable tool for practitioners like you whose decision--making----and profit margin----depend on accurately assessing todaya s often uncertain economic climate. "Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles provides a lively survey of the many ways that cyclical economic activity has been dissected and analyzed. With this book, an astute reader may even be able to anticipate the next cyclical turn." ----Samuel D. Kahan Chief Economist Fuji Securities, Inc. "The definitive book on the most important and enduring feature of an often mist--bound economic landscape: the business cycle." ----Alfred L. Malabre, Jr. Economics Editor The Wall Street Journal "Niemira and Klein cover both the theory of economic cycles and methods for forecasting them. They provide one of the most comprehensive and current reviews of academic studies of economic cycles to be found anywhere." ----Anthony F. Herbst Professor of Finance The University of Texas at El Paso "This book succeeds as a comprehensive, balanced, and accessible treatment of fluctuations in economic and financial activity. It should prove useful to all those in industry and finance who wish to understand and analyze the trends and changes in the modern dynamic economy." ----Victor Zarnowitz Professor Emeritus of Economics and Finance University of Chicago

Behavioural Economics and Terrorism can be used as a guide to help us think about thinking and, in doing so, to appreciate the deep quirkiness of human behaviour. Each day, people draw on their understanding of human behaviour. This takes place subconsciously for the most part but as situations become more complex it becomes necessary to think more deliberately about how people make their decisions. This book can be used to better understand human action in such contexts. In the high-stakes world of counter-terrorism, every angle of advantage is critical. From terrorists' operational choices to the way that information flows through intelligence agencies, the book explains the patterns of behaviour that systematically shape human decision-making, for good and for bad. Decision-makers' use of reference points, their loss aversion, overconfidence, goals and aspirations all shape their choices under conditions of risk and uncertainty. This book helps to shed light on how to use these concepts (and more) to develop deeper insights into the way in which terrorists think about their attack methods and targets.

Given that there is no shortage of economic theories while economic problems are growing periodically, Conceptual Economics boldly attempts to initiate a new approach by employing conceptual and intuitive tools to examine the intra-relationship between microeconomics and macroeconomics as well as the inter-relationship between economic analysis and other social science studies, especially the relationship with political science. The few intuitive ideas include the separation between ex-ante situations and ex-post outcomes, the difference between endowment differences and unequal outcomes, and the role of economics as a vehicle in the delivery of numerous social and political activities. The discussion extends to cover an analysis on human values and concludes with a recommendation on the functionality of civic capitalism. With intuition and analytical reasoning within economics and with other social sciences, Conceptual Economics can become a new branch in economic study where scholars, analysts and intellectuals could 'think outside the box' by liaising a wider economic perspective and/or amalgamating non-economic aspects into their analysis. This shall provide a new dimension to solving human economic problems and possibly area of intellectuality.

Before the arrival of the twenty-first century, Taiwan was widely regarded as a successful model of a country which had not only transformed herself from an underdeveloped economy into a high-tech industrialised island, but had also undergone a revolution from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Taiwan is now experiencing a significant economic slowdown and facing multifaceted challenges including low productivity, stagnant innovation culture of small and medium-sized enterprises, ageing population, sustainable energy mix, pension reform, upgrading of human resources, devising competition policy to provide incentives for innovation as well as to limit abuses from monopolies, warding off competition from countries with lower labour cost and managing complicated cross-Strait relationship with China. The edited book looks at Taiwan's past successful development model, summarises Taiwan's current situation, outlines the future challenges beyond the year 2020 and provides policy recommendations in the aforementioned aspects. The contributors of this volume are accomplished veteran scholars in the fields. Several of them used to be policy-makers at the level of ministers or deputy ministers. The book offers not only academic contribution but policy-relevant insights.

Behavioural Economics and Terrorism can be used as a guide to help us think about thinking and, in doing so, to appreciate the deep quirkiness of human behaviour. Each day, people draw on their understanding of human behaviour. This takes place subconsciously for the most part but as situations become more complex it becomes necessary to think more deliberately about how people make their decisions. This book can be used to better understand human action in such contexts. In the high-stakes world of counter-terrorism, every angle of advantage is critical. From terrorists' operational choices to the way that information flows through intelligence agencies, the book explains the patterns of behaviour that systematically shape human decision-making, for good and for bad. Decision-makers' use of reference points, their loss aversion, overconfidence, goals and aspirations all shape their choices under conditions of risk and uncertainty. This book helps to shed light on how to use these concepts (and more) to develop deeper insights into the way in which terrorists think about their attack methods and targets.

This book is a faithful record of China's economy that spans almost 70 years. Starting from 1949, it portrays in a panoramic picture how the economy has developed over these decades. From the initial restoration and retrenchment, to the great leap outward that resulted in the two phases of economic reform; from its accession to the WTO to the unprecedented process of urbanization, the book uses four chapters to depict in a chronological order how China becomes what it is today. For scholars on modern Chinese economy, this book offers a detailed account of a wide range of events that happened during clearly-divided time periods. On this basis, they can deepen their research on different individual subjects. Teachers of universities and colleges may use this book as a reference when preparing relevant courses. For economics majors, this book is a key that helps them clarify important issues. Learners who are interested in knowing more about China, especially the dramatic changes that have taken place in its economic scene, can equally acquire the needed facts and figures.

This book focuses on the economic aspects of intellectual property (IP). It includes considerations of the wider category of intangible assets. However, the primary focus is devoted to patents which the author argues are the most vivid example of the Tragedy of Intangible Abundance (TIA). TIA touches upon a key issue in the contemporary economy. On the one hand, there is an enormous supply of IP, yet, on the other hand, such an abundance does not necessarily solve existing issues but rather creates new ones as well. This book elaborates on the reasons for the emergence of TIA and its consequences. The author uses clear metaphors to explain very complex issues. The book provides a valuable and interdisciplinary analysis of the field and offers practical solutions. It is based on the data collected by the author during the qualitative research he conducted among a group of start-ups. It presents guidance on determining which instrument is the most efficient for a particular situation. It also provides arguments for decision-makers and their advisors as to why a more open approach towards intellectual property would be more beneficial under many circumstances in the contemporary economy. While universal issues are addressed, the author distinguishes the European perspective too. The book is written in a clear and concise style and covers all of the crucial aspects of IP management. It will find an audience among scholars of economics and business.

The book presents a collective action perspective to explain how extraterritoriality functions and assess when, and to what extent, extraterritoriality is effective. A collective action perspective provides a new account of foreign anti-bribery laws and their extraterritorial enforcement that draws on theories discussed in the field of economic governance. Within this framework, the book offers an intensive analysis of US foreign anti-bribery law such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), international law as it emanates from the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, and comparative insights into UK law and German law. To test the theory in practice, the book provides a unique data set of more than 40 foreign anti-bribery enforcement actions conducted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and other examples from comparative jurisdictions. Extraterritoriality and International Bribery is ideal reading for academics and students with an interest in global governance, economic crime, criminology, and law and economics, as well as practitioners concerned with foreign anti-bribery enforcement, including compliance officers, lawyers, investigating and prosecuting authorities, and business leaders. The book also discusses governance alternatives existing outside international anti-bribery law and offers policy and legal reforms proposals. The book suggests a decentralized enforcement model with the delegation of some enforcement tasks to an external body as the most appropriate governance alternative.

This book examines the linkages between exchange rates and India's merchandise trade since the 1990s. It looks at India's trade in the post-liberalisation period through its two main components: commodities and trading partners, and provides a bird's eye view through aggregate analyses accompanied by a historical narrative of the evolution of trade and exchange rate dynamics. Presenting a comprehensive analysis of bilateral and product-specific trade, the book explores the impact of exchange rate on labour intensive sectors and charts out major development. It also offers compelling evidence to suggest that if some commodities are identified as integral to India's export plans, then the impact of exchange rate must be weighed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prior to a market intervention. This timely volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of economics, business and finance, development studies, trade, business, and industry as well as practitioners, think-tanks, and policy makers.

The concept of "nudging" has hit news headlines in recent years following the implementation of nudge policies in many parts of the world, the establishment of behavioural policy units in some countries, and the award of the Nobel Prize in Economics to the behavioural economist Richard Thaler in 2017. However, questions remain about whether nudging is an optimal approach to policy-making. This book presents a critical approach to the study of nudging to highlight the foundations, rationale and effects of current policy-making trends in the neoliberal age of behavioural economics. In this provocative book, the author presents a re-examination of the methodological foundations of behavioural economics and its consequences for addressing the deep social and economic policy challenges of our times. It is argued that, although the concept of nudge proposed by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein rejects the theorization of economic behaviour under models of strict rationality, nudge policies focus on methodological individualism in economic thinking and economic policy. The complexity of social and economic policy problems of the twenty-first century calls for a revision of our conceptual outlooks, and to increase recognition of the failure of methodological individualism in economics to address the unprecedented social, political, and environmental challenges of globalization. Offering a new take on the epistemological assumptions underlying behaviourally-informed policies, this book will prompt the general public to consider new ideas about the darker side of behavioural economics.

Free market capitalism has created a divided American society. Conservative economic and social policy thinking drove the Right's Project from 1980 to its collapse in 2008, leaving the world in ruins and fascism on the march. The Vision of a Real Free Market Society challenges the Left to create new forms of the market economy that promote efficiency and equality while permanently thwarting concentrated power. Many recent commentators have offered policy recommendations based on existing economic institutions. By contrast, this book calls for root-and-branch changes to the inherent structure of American capitalism. The Vision of a Real Free Market Society: Re-Imagining American Freedom presents a Left-egalitarian case for limited government that overcomes the failures of conservatism while rescuing economic justice from the weaknesses of tax and transfer liberalism. The book explains why the system fails so many Americans in so many different ways, and outlines how we can build a better economy that simultaneously promotes freedom and social justice while crippling the powers of America's oligarchs. Exploring the idea of a left-wing case for strong but small government, the book makes the case for fundamental reforms that will lead to a truly free and fair society. This provocative book will be of great relevance to anyone with an interest in politics, philosophy or economics, and will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions concerning the prospects for combining justice with fairness in the modern world.

This work examines a trade that covered the backs of sailors and soldiers, that shirted labouring men and skirted working women, that employed legions of needlewomen and supplied retailers with new consumer wares. Garments, once bought, returned again to the marketplace, circulating like a currency and bolstering demand. The agents in this trade included military contractors for clothing, female outworkers and dealers in used clothes. Each was affected by a changing demand for new-styled 'luxuries' and necessities in apparel.

Foundations of Organisational Economics: Histories and Theories of the Firm and Production delves into a range of key topics to do with the history of the mainstream approach to the theory of production and the theory of the firm. This includes the frameworks used to analyse production, the division of labour and its application to the firm and the development of the neoclassical model of production. The first topic explored is the change from a normative approach to a largely positive approach to the analysis of the theory of production, which occurred around the seventeenth century. The next topic is an examination of the relationship (or the lack of a relationship) between the division of labour and the theory of the firm. In the fourth chapter, the focus is on the development of the proto-neoclassical approach to production. Here, the development of the theories of monopoly, oligopoly and perfect competition are discussed, as well as the theory of input utilisation. Chapter 5 looks at Marshall's idea of the representative firm, which was the main early neoclassical approach to the theory of industry-level production. The penultimate chapter considers the criticisms made of the neoclassical model between 1940 and 1970. This work is an illuminating reference for students and researchers of the history of economic thought, industrial organisation, microeconomic theory and organisational studies.