Paper1937
The Nature of the Firm
Ronald Coase
Firms exist because using the market has transaction costs; the boundary of the firm sits where those costs balance.
20 pageslink checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Industrial Organisation
Competition, market power and antitrust — oligopoly, entry barriers, network effects, and how platforms changed the questions.
9 topics · 9 curated works
Topics
- 01Foundations & Overviews1
- 02Oligopoly Models1
- 03Barriers to Entry1
- 04Network Effects & Platforms1
- 05Antitrust Economics
- 06Merger Analysis1
- 07Vertical Integration2
- 08Innovation & Market Structure1
- 09Two-Sided Markets1
Reading in Industrial Organisation
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Assumes you know the vocabulary.
The Nature of the Firm
Ronald Coase · 1937
Firms exist because using the market has transaction costs; the boundary of the firm sits where those costs balance.
+1 more at this level
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Primary sources and full treatments.
Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth
Augustin Cournot · 1838
Models rival sellers choosing output simultaneously and shows their equilibrium sits between the competitive and monopoly outcomes, founding the…
+6 more at this level
9 works
Paper1971
The Theory of Economic Regulation
George J. Stigler
Regulation is typically acquired by the industry it targets and designed to work in that industry's interest, not the public's — regulatory capture as the normal case rather than the failure case.
19 pageslink checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Book1838
Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth
Augustin Cournot
Models rival sellers choosing output simultaneously and shows their equilibrium sits between the competitive and monopoly outcomes, founding the mathematical analysis of oligopoly a century before game theory existed.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1962
Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention
Kenneth Arrow
Argues competitive markets will systematically underinvest in invention because information, once created, is cheap to copy and hard for its inventor to fully capture the value of.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1980
The Role of Investment in Entry-Deterrence
Avinash K. Dixit
Shows an incumbent can deter entry by committing to capacity or capital that makes aggressive post-entry competition credible, so the threat works only when the investment is genuinely irreversible.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1986
Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities
Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro
Shows that when a technology's value rises with its number of users, sponsorship and expectations management by firms — not just technical merit — decide which standard a market adopts.
PaidAdvanced
Paper2006
Two-Sided Markets: A Progress Report
Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole
Extends two-sided market theory past a single fixed platform, examining how competition between rival platforms and their pricing to each side changes once users can join more than one.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Lecture2009
Nobel Lecture: Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural Progression
Oliver E. Williamson
Argues the boundary of the firm is set by comparing the transaction costs of governing an exchange through markets, hierarchies or hybrid contracts, with asset specificity as the key variable that pushes a transaction inside the firm.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2010
The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines: From Hedgehog to Fox in Forty Years
Carl Shapiro
Argues the 2010 revision replaced a single-minded focus on market definition and concentration with a toolkit of competitive-effects evidence, reflecting how merger review is actually practised rather than how the 1982 guidelines said it should be.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
In order written
1838 – 2010- 1838Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of WealthAugustin Cournot
- 1937The Nature of the FirmRonald Coase
- 1962Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for InventionKenneth Arrow
- 1971The Theory of Economic RegulationGeorge J. Stigler
- 1980The Role of Investment in Entry-DeterrenceAvinash K. Dixit
- 1986Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network ExternalitiesMichael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro
- 2006Two-Sided Markets: A Progress ReportJean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole
- 2009Nobel Lecture: Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural ProgressionOliver E. Williamson