Edited by Dennis C. Mueller
The financial crisis that began in 2008 and its lingering aftermath have caused many intellectuals and politicians to question the virtues of capitalist systems. The Oxford Handbook of Capitalism analyzes both the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist systems. The volume opens with articles on the historical and legal origins of capitalism. These are followed by articles describing the nature, institutions, and advantages of capitalism: entrepreneurship, innovation, property rights, contracts, capital markets, and the modern corporation. The next set of articles discusses the problems that can arise in capitalist systems including monopoly, principal agent problems, financial bubbles, excessive managerial compensation, and empire building through wealth-destroying mergers. Two subsequent articles examine in detail the properties of the “Asian model” of capitalism as exemplified by Japan and South Korea, and capitalist systems where ownership and control are largely separated as in the United States and United Kingdom. The volume concludes with an article on capitalism in the twenty-first century by Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps
Table of Contents of The Oxford Handbook of Capitalism
- Introduction: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (Dennis C. Mueller)
Origins
- The Modern Capitalist World Economy: A Historical Overview (Jeffry A. Frieden)
- Legal Institutions and Economic Development (Thorsten Beck)
- Capital Markets and Financial Politics: Preferences and Institutions (Mark J. Roe)
The Nature of Capitalism
- The Four Types of Capitalism, Innovation, and Economic Growth (William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm)
- The Dynamics of Capitalism (F.M. Scherer)
The Institutions of Capitalism
- The Role of Finance in Economic Development: Benefits, Risks, and Politics (Thorsten Beck)
- Property Rights and Capitalism (Paul H. Rubin and Tilman Klumpp)
- Management and Governance of the Business Enterprise: Agency, Contracting, and Capabilities Perspectives(David J. Teece)
- Contracts (Victor P. Goldberg)
Problems with Capitalism
- Capitalism as A Mixed Economic System (Richard R. Nelson)
- Monopoly Capitalism (Keith Cowling and Philip R. Tomlinson)
- Agency Problems and the Fate of Capitalism (Randall Morck and Bernard Yeung)
- Executive Compensation: Governance and the Financial Crisis (Martin J. Conyon)
- Bubbles in Asset Prices (Burton G. Malkiel)
- Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control (Dennis C. Mueller)
Capitalism and the State: Different Approaches
- Dispersed Ownership: The Theories, the Evidence, and the Enduring Tension between “Lumpers” and “Splitters” (John C. Coffee Jr.)
- The East Asian (mostly Japanese) model of Capitalism (Hiroyuki Odagiri)
Wither Capitalism?
- Refounding Capitalism (Edmund S. Phelps)