Contents: Introduction -- 1. The sources of monopoly power in the history of economic thought -- 2. The universal force of competition -- 3. Monopoly power -- 4. Monopoly power, competition and reality -- 5. The concept of the state and economic policy -- Conclusions -- References -- Index.

The present article contributes to the history of the concept of natural monopoly, focusing on the reconstruction of its origins. The paper considers various facets of natural monopoly: the expression itself; the singling out of the concrete situations to which it is applied; the inquiry into...

After briefly reconstructing the debate in Italy during the period of the marginalist revolution on the correct methodology for the history of economic thought, the article examines De Viti de Marco's position. A historical essay of his (De Viti 1891) on Antonio Serra (1613), becomes the first...

Enrico Barone's famous article on economic planning, 'Il Ministro della Produzione nello Stato Collettivista' ('The Ministry of Production in the Collectivist State'), which showed the theoretical possibility of an economically efficient collectivist planned economy, was published in <italic>Giornale...</italic>