The Theory of the Firm

Daniel F. Spulber is the Elinor Hobbs Distinguished Professor of International Business and Professor of Management Strategy at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Founder of Kellogg's International Business and Markets Program, his current research is in the area of entrepreneurship, international economics, economics of organizations, industrial organization, management strategy, and law. Spulber is the author of 11 books, including Networks in Telecommunications: Economics and Law (with Christopher Yoo, forthcoming), Global Competitive Strategy (2007), Market Microstructure: Intermediaries and the Theory of the Firm (1999), and Deregulatory Takings and the Regulatory Contract: The Competitive Transformation of Network Industries in the United States (with J. Gregory Sidak, 1997), all from Cambridge University Press, and Management Strategy (2004), The Market Makers (1998), and Regulation and Markets (1989).

• Introduction; Part I. The Theory of the Firm: 1. The consumer; 2. The firm; 3. Separation of consumer objectives and firm objectives; Part II. The Entrepreneur in Equilibrium: 4. The entrepreneur; 5. Competition between entrepreneurs; Part III. Human Capital and Financial Capital: 6. Human capital and the organization of the firm; 7. Financial capital and the organization of the firm; Part IV. Intermediation by the Firm: 8. The firm as intermediary in the pure exchange economy; 9. The firm versus free riding; Part V. Market Making by the Firm: 10. The firm creates markets; 11. The firm in the market for contracts; 12. Conclusion.

'Daniel Spulber has produced nothing less than a magisterial work. His treatment of firm formation and the role of entrepreneurs in economic activity makes it a certainty that introductory texts in economics will have to be rewritten to accommodate the importance of his work and insight. For the first time, Schumpeter's work has been expanded and settled within the context of modern economics such that the transformation of our economy toward entrepreneurial capitalism has a new and profoundly well-reasoned theoretical basis.' Carl J. Schramm, President, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation