Category: Market Evolution
-
The Failure Of Markets
I very much enjoyed John Cassidy’s How Markets Fail. It is an ambitious piece in which he tries to describe how economic thought has impacted real-world markets. He has a special focus on the collapse of the financial markets in 2007/8 and the economic thought behind the failure to regulate the markets properly. What does he say about the failure…
-
Food Lessons From An Economist
Tyler Cowen’s “An Economist Gets Lunch” is pretty self-indulgent. In this book we get food lessons from an economist. Self-Indulgence Firstly, Cowen really loves his food and is happy to share his enthusiasm for high-quality meals. The second sense of self-indulgence is of an academic doing what he loves. I don’t mean to imply this negatively. When people do…
-
The Red Queen And Implications For Best Practice
It is hard to spend any time at a business school without hearing the phrase best practice. We teach students best practice. Junior professors seek hints from senior folk on best practice. Even schools regularly go through bouts of benchmarking to see if they are adopting best practice. Best practice essentially is something that gets the most…
-
Are Free Markets Discovered Or Created?
A key social science question is: Are Free Markets Discovered Or Created? This has surprisingly large political consequences. For example, what is the role of government? How much does it create the conditions for prosperity, or should it just get out of the way? Market Design Market Design is the study of what makes for…
-
Experimenters And Economists
Advocates for more behavioural approaches to understanding economics often use experiments. These typically show people acting in strange ways. Or at least that violate the principles of traditional economics. (Maybe the people are normal and the principles weird). A key thing is that experimenters and economists can be the same people. There is much potential uniting these…
-
The Gauntlet Of Attacks On Behavioral Economics
Richard Thaler‘s Misbehaving may be one of my favorite academic books. The author packed the book with interesting thoughts, covers numerous important ideas, and even is amusingly candid about his colleagues. Over the coming months, I’ll occasionally cover his key points (see here and here). In this post I’ll discuss “the gauntlet”; a list of predictable…
-
Confusion About Individual Rationality and Market Outcomes
Amongst marketing scholars there is a lot of confusion regarding individual rationality and market outcomes. There is also plenty of blame to go around for the confusion. Marketing’s Two Groups Who Politely Ignore One Another In marketing we have bifurcated into two groups. Psychologically trained scholars often suggest that economically trained scholars all believe in…
-
Competitor Orientation And The Evolution of Business Markets
My first major article was on Competitor Orientation And The Evolution of Business Markets. I think it is a fun one. Even though it took years and years to publish. Some may have agreed. it was fun That said, it is a bit mathy at times. Aiming To, Is Not Maximizing Profits When people envisage…
-
Competition, Marketing, and the Common Good
I really enjoyed Robert Frank’s The Darwin Economy. What can this tell us about competition, marketing, and the common good? No Cash On The Table Frank emphasizes that “No Cash is On the Table” (Frank 2011, page 35) and “Markets Don’t Ignore Profitable Opportunities for Long” (page 35). Traditional economic theory suggests all profitable opportunities…
-
Inequality And Efficiency
What do we know about inequality and efficiency? Inequality And Efficiency Is there an equality-efficiency trade-off? Is greater inequality just the price we pay for more efficiency? Economic theory has proven, one hears, that any but cosmetic modifications of capitalism in the direction of equality and democratic control will exact a heavy toll of reduced…
