Industrial Organization: Minds, Bodies, and Epidemics

This book takes the reader on a new tour of the world of firms. We start with a visit to the inside of a firm. We meet the owner and the manager. We look deeply into their mindsets. Then we move outside the firm, to observe the firm's outer features. We pay particular attention to its size, its complexity, its fragility, and its similarity to other firms. In the second half of the tour, we visit communities of firms. We watch waves of mergers, chaos, and bubbles. Before returning, we witness battles between firms and creatures that act like antibodies in our blood: corporate raiders, antitrust agencies, and creative destructors. Throughout the tour, we ask how the things we see are linked. This book encourages the reader to see them as feedback loops. The book’s overarching argument is the importance of the separation of ownership and control and how society must pay more attention to the concept..