The Oxford Handbook of Capitalism

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 19 original essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars from Asia, North America, and Europe, analyze both the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist systems. The volume opens with essays on the historical and legal origins of capitalism. These are followed by chapters describing the nature, institutions, and advantages of capitalism: entrepreneurship, innovation, property rights, contracts, capital markets, and the modern corporation. The next set of chapters 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 essays 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 handbook concludes with an essay on capitalism in the 21st century by Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps.

PrefaceIntroduction: Capitalism: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Dennis C. Mueller, University of ViennaI. Origins1. The Modern Capitalist World Economy: A Historical Overview, Jeffry A. Frieden (Harvard Law School)2. Legal Institutions and Economic Development, Thorsten Beck (Tilburg University)3. Capital Markets and Financial Politics: Preferences and Institutions, Mark Roe (Harvard University)II. The Nature of Capitalism4. The Four Types of Capitalism, Innovation, and Economic Growth, William J. Baumol (New York University and Princeton University), Robert E. Litan, Carl J. Schramm (Kauffman Foundation)5. The Dynamics of Capitalism, F. M. Scherer (Harvard University)III. The Institutions of Capitalism6. Capital Markets, Thorsten Beck (Tilburg University)7. Property Rights and Capitalism, Paul Rubin and Tilman Klumpp (Emory University)8. Management and Governance of the Business Enterprise: Agency, Contracting, and Capabilities Perspectives, David J. Teece (University of California, Berkeley)9. Contracts, Victor Goldberg (Columbia Law School)IV. Problems with Capitalism10. Capitalism as a Mixed Economic System, Richard Nelson (Columbia University)11. Monopoly Capitalism, Keith Cowling (University of Warwick) and Philip R Tomlinson (University of Bath)12. Agency Problems and the Fate of Capitalism, Randall Morck (University of Alberta) and Bernard Yeung (National University of Singapore)13. The Governance of Executive Compensation, Martin J. Conyon (The Wharton School)14. Bubbles in Asset Prices, Burton G. Malkiel (Princeton University)15. Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control, Dennis C. Mueller (University of Vienna)V. Capitalism and the State: Different Approaches16. Dispersed Ownership:The Theories, The Evidence, and the Enduring Tension Between "Lumpers" and "Splitters", John C. Coffee (Columbia Law School)17. The East Asian (mostly Japanese) Model of Capitalism, Hiroyuki Odagiri (Seijo University)VI. Wither Capitalism?18. Refounding Capitalism, Edmund Phelps (Columbia, University)