Case studies that examine how firms coordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information-information not equally available to all parties-are the focus of this volume.In an ideal world, the market would be the optimal provider of coordination, but in the real world of incomplete...

This essay is the introduction to a book of the same title, forthcoming in summer of 2021 from Oxford University Press. The purpose is to document the ways in which patent systems are products of battles over the economic surplus from innovation. The features of these systems take shape as...

This paper considers the effect of the First World War on large-scale businesses in Second-Industrial-Revolution industries like steel, electricity, and chemicals. For firms in the nations of the Entente, we argue, the war mainly interrupted long-term trends that resumed in the aftermath of the...