This section covers a wide range of new approaches to a crucial area of economics. It addresses the impact of game theory, the new institutional economics and the interaction of economics and business strategy.

From the Nobel Prize-winning economist, a bold new agenda for the role of economics in society When Jean Tirole won the Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by strangers and asked to comment on current events far from his own research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect more deeply on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics can help us improve the shared lot of societies and humanity as a whole. To show how, Tirole shares his insights on a broad range of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Compelling and accessible, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society.

From Nobel Prize-winning economist Jean Tirole, a bold new agenda for the role of economics in society When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a "dismal science," is a positive force for the common good. Economists are rewarded for writing technical papers in scholarly journals, not joining in public debates. But Tirole says we urgently need economists to engage with the many challenges facing society, helping to identify our key objectives and the tools needed to meet them. To show how economics can help us realize the common good, Tirole shares his insights on a broad array of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the Euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Providing a rich account of how economics can benefit everyone, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society.

"In this remarkably ambitious and insightful book, Jean Tirole tackles the core issues in the economics of international lending with his usual superb clarity of thought. This book is essential reading to anyone interested in understanding the economics behind the recent drive to improve the international financial architecture."--Ken Rogoff, Chief Economist and Director of Research, International Monetary Fund

"Jean Tirole is living proof of the value of good economic thinking. He shines new light on, and dissipates heat from, every issue he touches. In this book he offers us an amazing combination of detailed facts and rigorous theory about international financial crises. His perspective of dual and common agencies enriches our understanding of the roles and shortcomings of international economic institutions, and points the way to reform. All the supposed experts who engage in controversies on these matters should learn from this book."--Avinash Dixit, Princeton University

"This book presents one of the first comprehensive attempts to bring rigorous theoretical foundations into the debate on the international financial architecture. The analysis is simple, elegant, and yields insights that are often unconventional and always thought-provoking. This is an indispensable reference for all economists interested in the current debates on the international financial architecture."--Olivier Jeanne, International Monetary Fund

"Most proposals for reforming the international financial system derive from ad hoc explanations for recent crises. Jean Tirole goes back to first principles. He asks how relations between lenders and borrowers differ in the international context from those inthe domestic context. You may not agree with all of his conclusions but will have to rethink your own views after you have read it."--Peter B. Kenen, Princeton University

"Jean Tirole uses the tools of corporate finance to analyse some key aspects of international finance. As we expect from him, we get deep and fruitful insights into issues such as borrower and lender behavior, the appropriate role of the IMF, and private sector involvement in orderly workouts. This is essential reading for all those concerned with the 'international financial architecture.'"--Richard Portes, London Business School

"Using a single elementary model Tirole brings out with refreshing ease an unsuspected unity and simplicity in a field that might otherwise be perceived as dishearteningly fragmented and complex. This masterful book will be a formidable teaching tool at the graduate level and an essential reference for research in corporate finance."--Marco Pagano, Professor of Economics, University of Naples Federico II

"The field of corporate finance has developed rapidly and extensively in the last twenty years, but those who want to teach it face a barrier: the absence of a widely accepted textbook. Jean Tirole's book fills that gap. Applying his celebrated analytical and expositional skills, Tirole synthesizes and unifies the field in a clear and accessible manner, emphasizing particularly the connections between corporate finance and contract theory and the role of incentives and control in firms' financial decisions. The result is a book that will be an important resource for students and teachers alike."--Oliver Hart, Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics, Harvard University

"With this book, Tirole has provided a comprehensive treatment of modern corporate finance theory in one place with one integrated framework. As a bonus, he also describes many of the important empirical results in corporate finance and how they relate to the theories. The book will be a valuable asset to students (and professors) of corporate finance."--Steve Kaplan, Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

"This is a remarkable book. Theoretical work in corporate finance over the past thirty or so years has yielded a bewildering array ofindividual models, yet Tirole manages to give a beautifully clear and unified treatment of the field. There is a real coherence both within and across the chapters, and one is in many places able to see the close connection between topics that are ordinarily treated as being distinct. The book will no doubt be the standard reference for researchers and students in corporate finance for many years to come."--Jeremy C. Stein, Harvard University

"Jean Tirole, one of the preeminent economists of his generation, has put together the first integrated treatise of modern corporate finance theory. He succeeds in unifying the dispersed theories on financial and ownership structure, building on his excellence in information economics and contract theory. The book should be required reading for any Ph.D. course in corporate finance."--Arnoud W. A. Boot, University of Amsterdam and Centre for Economic Policy Research

""The Theory of Corporate Finance" is a towering achievement. Jean Tirole's vision is exhaustive, systematic and original. The major findings of the last two decades are recast in a unified framework, describing the multiple levels of contracting relationships created by firms' financial decisions. The book offers a significant number of new insights and it will have a profound impact on our understanding of corporate finance."--Antoine Faure-Grimaud, Professor of Finance, London School of Economics

The financial crisis that began in 2007 in the United States swept the world, producing substantial bank failures and forcing unprecedented state aid for the crippled global financial system. Bringing together three leading financial economists to provide an international perspective, Balancing the Banks draws critical lessons from the causes of the crisis and proposes important regulatory reforms, including sound guidelines for the ways in which distressed banks might be dealt with in the future. While some recent policy moves go in the right direction, others, the book argues, are not sufficient to prevent another crisis. The authors show the necessity of an adaptive prudential regulatory system that can better address financial innovation. Stressing the numerous and complex challenges faced by politicians, finance professionals, and regulators, and calling for reinforced international coordination (for example, in the treatment of distressed banks), the authors put forth a number of principles to deal with issues regarding the economic incentives of financial institutions, the impact of economic shocks, and the role of political constraints. Offering a global perspective, Balancing the Banks should be read by anyone concerned with solving the current crisis and preventing another such calamity in the future.

Once upon a time, economists saw capital account liberalization--the free and unrestricted flow of capital in and out of countries--as unambiguously good. Good for debtor states, good for the world economy. No longer. Spectacular banking and currency crises in recent decades have shattered the consensus. In this remarkably clear and pithy volume, one of Europe's leading economists examines these crises, the reforms being undertaken to prevent them, and how global financial institutions might be restructured to this end. Jean Tirole first analyzes the current views on the crises and on the reform of the international financial architecture. Reform proposals often treat the symptoms rather than the fundamentals, he argues, and sometimes fail to reconcile the objectives of setting effective financing conditions while ensuring that a country "owns" its reform program. A proper identification of market failures is essential to reformulating the mission of an institution such as the IMF, he emphasizes. Next he adapts the basic principles of corporate governance, liquidity provision, and risk management of corporations to the particulars of country borrowing. Building on a "dual- and common-agency perspective," he revisits commonly advocated policies and considers how multilateral organizations can help debtor countries reap enhanced benefits while liberalizing their capital accounts. Based on the Paolo Baffi Lecture the author delivered at the Bank of Italy, this refreshingly accessible book is teeming with rich insights that researchers, policymakers, and students at all levels will find indispensable.

The Theory of Industrial Organization is the first primary text to treat the new industrial organization at the advanced-undergraduate and graduate level. Rigorously analytical and filled with exercises coded to indicate level of difficulty, it provides a unified and modern treatment of the field with accessible models that are simplified to highlight robust economic ideas while working at an intuitive level. To aid students at different levels, each chapter is divided into a main text and supplementary section containing more advanced material. Each chapter opens with elementary models and builds on this base to incorporate current research in a coherent synthesis. Tirole begins with a background discussion of the theory of the firm. In Part I he develops the modern theory of monopoly, addressing single product and multi product pricing, static and intertemporal price discrimination, quality choice, reputation, and vertical restraints. In Part II, Tirole takes up strategic interaction between firms, starting with a novel treatment of the Bertrand-Cournot interdependent pricing problem. He studies how capacity constraints, repeated interaction, product positioning, advertising, and asymmetric information affect competition or tacit collusion. He then develops topics having to do with long term competition, including barriers to entry, contestability, exit, and research and development. He concludes with a "game theory user's manual" and a section of review exercises. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images found in the physical edition.

The financial crisis that began in 2007 in the United States swept the world, producing substantial bank failures and forcing unprecedented state aid for the crippled global financial system. Bringing together three leading financial economists to provide an international perspective, "Balancing the Banks" draws critical lessons from the causes of the crisis and proposes important regulatory reforms, including sound guidelines for the ways in which distressed banks might be dealt with in the future.

While some recent policy moves go in the right direction, others, the book argues, are not sufficient to prevent another crisis. The authors show the necessity of an "adaptive" prudential regulatory system that can better address financial innovation. Stressing the numerous and complex challenges faced by politicians, finance professionals, and regulators, and calling for reinforced international coordination (for example, in the treatment of distressed banks), the authors put forth a number of principles to deal with issues regarding the economic incentives of financial institutions, the impact of economic shocks, and the role of political constraints.

Offering a global perspective, "Balancing the Banks" should be read by anyone concerned with solving the current crisis and preventing another such calamity in the future.

The first textbook to present a comprehensive and detailed economic analysis of electricity markets, analyzing the tensions between microeconomics and political economy. The power industry is essential in our fight against climate change. This book is the first to examine in detail the microeconomics underlying power markets, stemming from peak-load pricing, by which prices are low when the installed generation capacity exceeds demand but can rise a hundred times higher when demand is equal to installed capacity. The outcome of peak-load pricing is often difficult to accept politically, and the book explores the tensions between microeconomics and political economy. Understanding peak-load pricing and its implications is essential for designing robust policies and making sound investment decisions. Thomas-Olivier Leautier presents the model in its simplest form, and introduces additional features as different issues are presented. The book covers all segments of electricity markets: electricity generation, under perfect and imperfect competition; retail competition and demand response; transmission pricing, transmission congestion management, and transmission constraints; and the current policy issues arising from the entry of renewables into the market and capacity mechanisms. Combining anecdotes and analysis of real situations with rigorous analytical modeling, each chapter analyzes one specific issue, first presenting findings in nontechnical terms accessible to policy practitioners and graduate students in management or public policy and then presenting a more mathematical analytical exposition for students and researchers specializing in the economics of electricity markets and for those who want to understand and apply the underlying models.

Epochemachendes Werk, das die Volkswirtschaftslehre mit neuen Dimensionen versehen hat. Aus dem Inhalt: Was ist eine Unternehmung? Die Gewinnmaximierungshypothese. Das Monopol. Produktgestaltung, Qualitat und Werbung. Preisdifferenzierung. Vertikale Bindung. Oligopole und strategische Entscheidungssituationen. Dynamischer Preiswettbewerb und spontanes Parallelverhalten. Produktdifferenzierung: Preispolitik und die Gestaltung anderer Absatzeinflussgrossen. Marktzutritt, Anpassung und Marktaustritt. Information und strategisches Verhalten: Reputation, Limitpreise und Veranderungspreise. Forschung und Entwicklung und die Einfuhrung neuer Technologien. Nichtkooperative Spieltheorie. Wiederholungsaufgaben."

This advanced text introduces the principles of noncooperative game theory in a direct and uncomplicated style that will acquaint students with the broad spectrum of the field while highlighting and explaining what they need to know at any given point. This advanced text introduces the principles of noncooperative game theory-including strategic form games, Nash equilibria, subgame perfection, repeated games, and games of incomplete information-in a direct and uncomplicated style that will acquaint students with the broad spectrum of the field while highlighting and explaining what they need to know at any given point. The analytic material is accompanied by many applications, examples, and exercises. The theory of noncooperative games studies the behavior of agents in any situation where each agent's optimal choice may depend on a forecast of the opponents' choices. "Noncooperative" refers to choices that are based on the participant's perceived selfinterest. Although game theory has been applied to many fields, Fudenberg and Tirole focus on the kinds of game theory that have been most useful in the study of economic problems. They also include some applications to political science. The fourteen chapters are grouped in parts that cover static games of complete information, dynamic games of complete information, static games of incomplete information, dynamic games of incomplete information, and advanced topics.

Two leading economists develop a theory explaining the demand for and supply of liquid assets. Why do financial institutions, industrial companies, and households hold low-yielding money balances, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets? When and to what extent can the state and international financial markets make up for a shortage of liquid assets, allowing agents to save and share risk more effectively? These questions are at the center of all financial crises, including the current global one. In Inside and Outside Liquidity, leading economists Bengt Holmstroem and Jean Tirole offer an original, unified perspective on these questions. In a slight, but important, departure from the standard theory of finance, they show how imperfect pledgeability of corporate income leads to a demand for as well as a shortage of liquidity with interesting implications for the pricing of assets, investment decisions, and liquidity management. The government has an active role to play in improving risk-sharing between consumers with limited commitment power and firms dealing with the high costs of potential liquidity shortages. In this perspective, private risk-sharing is always imperfect and may lead to financial crises that can be alleviated through government interventions.