If a book needs a third edition, because the previous ones are sold out, one may well question whether an introduction is necessary. However, the Structure of European Industry was meant to be a flexible book, keeping it in tune with actual developments in the European Community. Some explanation is therefore required. Two new chapters on the services industry have been included, to recognize the growing importance of what is fundamentally a bundle of industries. It is also increasingly acknowledged, that the motorcar industry, for its efficiency and innovativeness, is very much dependent on the numerous suppliers, large and small, of the component parts industry. A chapter, reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the European car supplying industries is therefore most welcome. Finally, European competition policy, now fitted out with the Merger Control Regulation is moving more and more towards the centre of stage and the final chapter presents a survey of the ~ims and achievements of this type of policy, up till now steadfastly developed by the EC Commission. For the rest, the chapters which were already in the previous edition, have been updated and have partly been rewritten by the authors concerned. The editor is most grateful to old and new contributors for their efforts to jointly produce a book which, after 12 years, is still unique in providing a European, instead of a national focus on industries and markets.

This book originated at a meeting of American and European specialists in in dustrial organization, at the Instituut voor Bedrijfskunde, Nijenrode (The Netherlands) in August, 1974. The conference endeavored to bring together re searchers in a field where, paradoxically, the underlying phenomena studied are increasingly coordinated and internationalized, yet the observers remain pre dominantly isolated. Only rarely do they resort to comparisons between coun tries, and still less frequently to an analysis from a transnational outlook. As the contributions to this collection demonstrate, it has become clearer and clearer that -whether or not as a result of a random process, or of technological conditions, or of deliberate enterprise strategy - the determinants of market structures and their changes as time passes, have created fundamentally similar effects in different countries, resulting in industrial structures of the same kind. Thus, the largest firms and plants are found in the same sectors, and the most concentrated industries are more or less the same from one country to the other. The studies of Prais, Reid, Jacquemin & Phlips and Linda likewise show that a broad trend toward concentration has been manifest."

The present volume of essays on industrial organization, which are based on conferences held at Nijenrode and Brussels, differs considerably from its predecessor. Even more than in the first volume the essays demonstrate the broad scope of industrial organization analysis. Besides the traditional topics such as economies of scale, monopoly and competition policy, there are essays on methodology, on stagflation, and on the relationship between industrial struc ture and international trade and trade policies. The latter topics are of growing importance. The issue of restructuring industries and the question of whether free trade or some measure of protection is more appropriate are topics of increasing relevance today (and will no doubt continue to be in future years as well). The problem of persistent inflation which other essays address is also of major concern. Apart from being broad in scope and venturing into new fields, this volume is also controversial. Its central feature is a debate about welfare aspects. Here, more than in pure analysis, economists tend to entertain different points of view. One of the participants in the Nijenrode conference, Professor John Blair, who died in December 1976 and whom we honour as having been an active promoter of this kind of meeting, wrote to the editors shortly before his death to say that the first volume had succeeded very well in acquainting the reader with the results of empirical investigations, notably on trends and levels of concentration."

The Structure of European Industry is a collection of essays on the economic organization of industrial sectors in Europe, which may serve either of policy makers in business and in Government; and staff and students at Universities. The first group increasingly needs a focus on the longer-term developments of European industry, now that the positive (growth) effects of the economic integration of the sixties have worn off. Restructuring is the current catch word and nobody can deny the necessity and urgency of the task. But it has become a day-to-day affair and there may be a loss of perspective. The second group is growing up in an international environment and should be equipped accordingly. Many-faceted tasks are involved with serving either depending on the problems which differ according to industries. And here the bewildering complexity of the European industrial scenery strikes. Some of these industries are old fashioned; some are new; some are national in orientation; some have become integrated; some have a competitive structure; some are cartellized or heavily concentrated; some have been interfered with by national Governments, others were free from such policing; etc. Moreover, a number of industries show various combinations of these and other facets at the same time.

The present volume of essays on industrial organization, which are based on conferences held at Nijenrode and Brussels, differs considerably from its predecessor. Even more than in the first volume the essays demonstrate the broad scope of industrial organization analysis. Besides the traditional topics such as economies of scale, monopoly and competition policy, there are essays on methodology, on stagflation, and on the relationship between industrial struc ture and international trade and trade policies. The latter topics are of growing importance. The issue of restructuring industries and the question of whether free trade or some measure of protection is more appropriate are topics of increasing relevance today (and will no doubt continue to be in future years as well). The problem of persistent inflation which other essays address is also of major concern. Apart from being broad in scope and venturing into new fields, this volume is also controversial. Its central feature is a debate about welfare aspects. Here, more than in pure analysis, economists tend to entertain different points of view. One of the participants in the Nijenrode conference, Professor John Blair, who died in December 1976 and whom we honour as having been an active promoter of this kind of meeting, wrote to the editors shortly before his death to say that the first volume had succeeded very well in acquainting the reader with the results of empirical investigations, notably on trends and levels of concentration."

This book originated at a meeting of American and European specialists in in dustrial organization, at the Instituut voor Bedrijfskunde, Nijenrode (The Netherlands) in August, 1974. The conference endeavored to bring together re searchers in a field where, paradoxically, the underlying phenomena studied are increasingly coordinated and internationalized, yet the observers remain pre dominantly isolated. Only rarely do they resort to comparisons between coun tries, and still less frequently to an analysis from a transnational outlook. As the contributions to this collection demonstrate, it has become clearer and clearer that -whether or not as a result of a random process, or of technological conditions, or of deliberate enterprise strategy - the determinants of market structures and their changes as time passes, have created fundamentally similar effects in different countries, resulting in industrial structures of the same kind. Thus, the largest firms and plants are found in the same sectors, and the most concentrated industries are more or less the same from one country to the other. The studies of Prais, Reid, Jacquemin & Phlips and Linda likewise show that a broad trend toward concentration has been manifest."

If a book needs a third edition, because the previous ones are sold out, one may well question whether an introduction is necessary. However, the Structure of European Industry was meant to be a flexible book, keeping it in tune with actual developments in the European Community. Some explanation is therefore required. Two new chapters on the services industry have been included, to recognize the growing importance of what is fundamentally a bundle of industries. It is also increasingly acknowledged, that the motorcar industry, for its efficiency and innovativeness, is very much dependent on the numerous suppliers, large and small, of the component parts industry. A chapter, reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the European car supplying industries is therefore most welcome. Finally, European competition policy, now fitted out with the Merger Control Regulation is moving more and more towards the centre of stage and the final chapter presents a survey of the ~ims and achievements of this type of policy, up till now steadfastly developed by the EC Commission. For the rest, the chapters which were already in the previous edition, have been updated and have partly been rewritten by the authors concerned. The editor is most grateful to old and new contributors for their efforts to jointly produce a book which, after 12 years, is still unique in providing a European, instead of a national focus on industries and markets.