Trust and Power argues that corporations have faced conflicts with the very consumers whose loyalty they sought. The book provides novel insights into the dialogue between modern corporations and consumers by examining automobiles during the 20th century. In the new market at the turn of the century, automakers produced defective cars, and consumers faced risks of physical injuries as well as financial losses. By the 1920s automobiles were sold in a mass market where state agencies intervened to monitor, however imperfectly, product quality and fair pricing mechanisms. After 1945, the market matured as most U.S. families came to rely on auto transport. Automakers sold a product suited to the unequal distribution of income. Again, the state intervened to regulate relations between buyers and sellers in terms of who had access to credit, and thus the ability to purchase expensive durables like automobiles.

Trust and Power argues that corporations have faced conflicts with the very consumers whose loyalty they sought. The book provides novel insights into the dialogue between corporations and consumers by examining the car industry during the twentieth century. In the new market at the turn of the century, car manufacturers produced defective cars, and consumers faced risks of physical injuries as well as financial losses. By the 1920s, cars were sold in a mass market where state agencies intervened to monitor, however imperfectly, product quality and fair pricing mechanisms. After 1945, the market matured as most US families came to rely on car transport. Again, the state intervened to regulate relations between buyers and sellers in terms of who had access to credit, and thus the ability to purchase expensive durables like cars.

Since the 1930s when the government began active regulation, US agriculture has undergone a revolution in productivity. Sally Clarke explains how government activity, from support for research to price supports and farm credit programmes, created a climate favourable to rapid gains in productivity. Farmers in the Corn Belt delayed purchases of the tractor, the most important agricultural technology, despite the cost savings it promised. Tractor purchases required large sums of cash at a time when families faced unstable prices and unattractive credit markets. The New Deal inadvertently changed this investment climate. Regulation stabilized prices, introduced new sources of credit, and caused tool manufacturers and private creditors to revise their business strategies. Competitive farmers took advantage of these new conditions to invest in expensive technology and achieve new gains in productivity.

The introduction of New Deal regulation coincided with the start of a revolution in U.S. farm productivity. Compared with small gains in the three decades prior to 1930, farmers after 1935 maintained an exceptionally high rate of productivity growth. In Regulation and the Revolution in United States Farm Productivity, Sally Clarke argues that regulation worked in tandem with farmers' competitive markets to create a dynamic process for productivity growth. Competition, Clarke finds, cannot alone explain the rapid diffusion of technology. Prior to 1930, farmers in the Corn Belt delayed purchases of the tractor, the most important technology, despite the cost savings it promised. Aside from competition, farmers responded to their investment climate, which Clarke defines as the interaction of diverse elements: unstable prices, the structure of farms, and the role of different actors - implement manufacturers, creditors, agricultural researchers. In the 1920s, tractors demanded large sums of cash at a time when farmers' investment climate hampered such financial commitments. As a result, many families delayed purchases and missed potential productivity savings. The New Deal changed this climate. Regulation stabilized prices, introduced new sources of credit, and caused implement manufacturers and private creditors to revise their business strategies. Despite the Depression, farmers invested in expensive technology and acquired significant new gains in productivity. After the Depression, the rapid growth in productivity entailed drastic changes in the farm sector: a small number of competitors survived but most ultimately quit. Regulation shaped these outcomes. For as long as prices fellafter World War II, credit and price regulation helped aggressive farmers invest in land and technology. Ironically, these same policies created conditions under which those who gave up their livelihood rarely experienced foreclosure. Instead, in the 1970s when prices rose, those farmers who remained exposed themselves to a new crisis, which had severe results in the ensuing decade.

"The Challenge of Remaining Innovative" explores innovation as a complex phenomenon that may be organizational as well as technological, that operates both within firms and across the broader economy, and that involves matters not only of research and development, but also of marketing, design, and government relations. The contributors explore two main themes: the challenge of remaining innovative and the necessity of managing institutional boundaries in doing so.
The collection is organized into four parts, which move outward from individual firms; to networks or clusters of firms; to consultants and other intermediaries in the private economy who operate outside of the firms themselves; and finally to government institutions and politics. This scheme delineates a variety of ways in which entrepreneurship has persisted across the 20th century--and accentuates how ongoing organizational re-arrangement has contributed mightily to its sustained vitality.