The Economics of Competitive Enterprise

P.W.S. Andrews was a pioneer of fieldwork-based analysis of the behaviour of firms and of the normal cost/mark-up approach to pricing in oligopolistic markets, as well as a significant participant in debates about competition policy during the 1950s and 1960s.

This important book includes essays and papers which are central to an understanding of Andrews’s work. The Economics of Competitive Enterprise commences with an example of his case study work and continues with chapters on costs and price setting, theories of the firm and competitive analysis, investment behaviour and aspects of competition in retail trade as well as essays on the methodology of industrial economics. Including previously unpublished material, such as a critique of the development of price theory and significant correspondence between Andrews and other leading economists, this volume offers a remarkable insight into the process of economic discourse since 1945. In addition to a full bibliography, the book also includes an extensive introductory essay by Frederic Lee as well as an epilogue by Peter Earl on the legacy of Andrews’s industrial economics.

This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in economics departments and business schools, including microeconomic analysts, industrial economists, historians of economic thought and marketing theorists.