Background
Demsetz grew up on the West Side of Chicago, the grandchild of immigrants from central and eastern Europe.
(The essays in this volume break new ground in the theory ...)
The essays in this volume break new ground in the theory of the business firm and its applications in economics. A leading analyst of industrial organization, Professor Demsetz critically examines current debates on the existence, definition, and organization of the firm and discusses issues related to the emerging theory of the firm. He then analyzes the relation among business ownership, wealth, and economic development. Subsequent essays offer new perspectives on competition, profit maximization and rational behavior, and shed new light on managers' compensation, antitrust policy, and the accuracy of firms' accounting data.
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(Professor Demsetz is one of the leading contemporary auth...)
Professor Demsetz is one of the leading contemporary authorities in the field of industrial organization. His work has ranged widely over such topics as property rights, the theory of the firm, transaction costs, industrial structure, monopoly, and ownership: to each, he has brought a unique blend of positive theorizing and evidence gathering, relying on simple verbal and geometric exposition to illuminate complex issues. This volume brings together a selection of some of his most important work on the central theme of ownership. It includes several unpublished pieces, notably an overview of the economics of ownership, an examination of the ethical content of property rights arrangements, and an introduction, sketching the development of the author's ideas and career as an economist.
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economist university professor
Demsetz grew up on the West Side of Chicago, the grandchild of immigrants from central and eastern Europe.
He studied engineering, forestry, and philosophy at four universities before being awarded a Bachelor of Arts (1953) in economics from the University of Illinois, and an Master of Business Administration (1954) and a Doctor of Philosophy (1959) from Northwestern University.
Demsetz (1988) includes a short intellectual autobiography. While a graduate student, he published an article each in Econometrica and the Journal of Political Economy. Demsetz taught at the University of Michigan (1958-1960), University of California, Los Angeles, 1960-1963, and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, 1963-1971.
In 1971, he returned permanently to University of California, Los Angeles"s Economics Department, which he chaired 1978-1980.
He held the Arthur Andersen University of California, Los Angeles Alumni Chair in Business Economics, 1986-1995. He has been affiliated with the Center for Naval Analyses and the Hoover Institution.
Demsetz belongs to the Chicago school of economic theory, and was one of the pioneers of the approach now called New Institutional Economics. He has expanded the theory of property rights now prevalent in law and economics.
Even though Demsetz never employed game theory, he is a major figure in industrial organization through his writings on the theory of the firm, antitrust policy, and business regulation.
His expository style is devoid of mathematical formalism to an extent unusual for someone who began his career after 1950. Demsetz was the first to propose emissions trading as a way of giving polluters an economic incentive to reduce their emissions of pollutants. He coined the term "nirvana fallacy" in 1969.
The 1972 Demsetz and Armen Alchian article Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization was selected as one of the twenty most important articles published in the first century of the American Economic Review.
1969, "Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint,".
(A selection of writings on the theme of ownership, by a l...)
(The essays in this volume break new ground in the theory ...)
(The essays in this volume break new ground in the theory ...)
(Professor Demsetz is one of the leading contemporary auth...)
A look back over my work reveals three continuing interests. The first is a curiosity about why certain institutional arrangements arise and survive. This is revealed in my work on property rights, the theory of the firm, and the causes of industrial concentration, and it continues in work I am now doing on the ownership structure of firms.
The second interest is in resolving certain theoretical problems that at one time or another have puzzled medical Here I would place my work on monopolistic competition and natural monopoly. Is excess capacity implied by monopolistic competition?.
Is monopoly price implied by natural monopoly? My third interest has been to bring empirical evidence to bear as much as is practical. Approximately half of my written work is substantially empirical. This includes my work on transaction cost, industrial structure, and the ownership structure of the firm.
In no case is the empirical work purely descriptive, rather it is used to examine whether a fairly simple look at data supports or undermines the proposition under consideration. If I have a special talent, it is to simplify a problem to the point where ‘geometric thinking’ can grasp its essentials and where a few quantifiable relationships stand out. Problems requiring complex mathematical and econometric techniques seem to dull my interest.
I think this is because solutions that demand such complexity are very difficult for me to interpret with great confidence. I am grateful for the ample supply of bright, young scholars predisposed to take on these problems.
Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science. Member Mont Pelerin Society, American Economics Association, WEA International (president 1996).