This is a history of IBM, a huge multinational firm, from its origins in the 1880s to the present. It demonstrates that this supplier of computers, software and information technology services played a profound role in shaping how other large organizations and economies evolved in the twentieth...

Introduction: Killing it -- The death of Steve Jobs -- A worldview shaped by the deep South -- Learning the trade at Big Blue -- A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a near-bankrupt company -- Saving Apple through outsourcing -- Stepping into Steve Jobs's shoes -- Finding his feet with hot...

We examine how the confluence of competition and upstream innovation influences downstream firms’ profit-maximizing strategies. In particular, we analyze how, in light of these forces, the downstream firm sets the price of the product over its life cycle. We focus on personal computers (PCs)...

The economic expansion of the late 1990s created many opportunities for business creation in Silicon Valley, but the opportunity cost of starting a business was also high during this period because of the exceptionally tight labor market. A new measure of entrepreneurship derived from matching...

The impact of patent pools on the rate and direction of technological change is an open question in both theoretical and empirical studies. Economic theory makes no unequivocal prediction. By contrast, empirical studies of patent pools, to date, have largely concluded that patent pools have been...

Upbringing, family, and education -- Reed college and time before pre-Apple (1972-1976) -- The first year -- Apple Computer Incorporated and growth -- Now truly wealthy -- Ouster from Apple -- Next was Next -- Pixar and Disney -- Saving Apple from bankruptcy -- Apple's reshaping for the modern...

Introduction: Britain's computer "revolution" -- War machines : women's computing work and the underpinnings of the data-driven state 1930-1946 -- Peacetime data processing : institutionalizing a feminized machine underclass 1946-1954 -- Luck and labor shortage : gender, professionalization, and...

Related links: http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2012/q4/economic_history_weblinks.cfm