- Creative Industries
- Richard E. Caves
- This book explores the organization of creative industries, including the visual and performing arts, movies, theater, sound recordings, and book publishing. In each, artistic inputs are combined with other, "humdrum" inputs. But the deals that bring these inputs together are inherently problematic: artists have strong views; the muse whispers erratically; and consumer approval remains highly uncertain until all costs have been incurred. To explain the logic of these arrangements, the author draws on the analytical resources of industrial economics and the theory of contracts.
- Hardcover 2000 / Paperback 2002
- Leveling the Playing Field
- Paul C. Weiler
- The ideal of evenly balanced sporting contests is continually challenged by economic, social, and technological forces. Consequently, Weiler argues, the law is essential to level the playing field for players, owners, and ultimately fans and taxpayers. Using well-known incidents--and supplying little-known facts--Weiler analyzes a wide array of moral and economic issues that arise in all American competitive sports.
- Hardcover 2000 / Paperback 2001
- A Theory of the Firm
- Michael C. Jensen
- This collection examines the forces, both external and internal, that lead corporations to behave efficiently and to create wealth. Corporations vest control rights in shareholders, the author argues, because they are the constituency that bear business risk and therefore have the appropriate incentives to maximize corporate value. Assigning control to any other group would be tantamount to allowing that group to play poker with someone else's money, and would create inefficiencies.
- Hardcover 2000 / Paperback 2003
- Value-Focused Thinking
- Ralph L. Keeney
- In this book, Ralph Keeney turns standard decisionmaking methods on their heads. Rather than placing emphasis on mechanics and fixed solutions, Keeney argues, we should focus on the bottom-line objectives that give decisionmaking its meaning: it is through recognizing and articulating fundamental values that we can better identify decision opportunities--and thereby create better decision alternatives.
- Hardcover 1992 / Paperback 1996