David Colander Chapter Summary

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In chapter 16 David Colander writes about what firms, markets and competition actually focus on in the real world. Colander begins by noting that it is reasonable to start with assumption that profits are profit maximizers, however, in the real market it depends. Colander notes that if firms are profit maximizers they are much more concerned with long-run profits rather than short run profits. Thus, even if they can, they make not take full position of their monopolistic situation in order to strengthen their long-term position. An example the author provides is the liberal return policies that companies have. Similarly this means that many firms will spend capital on such expenditures on reputation and goodwill to increase long-run profits, even if their short-run profits are reduced. The second insight that Professor Colander provides to demonstrate how real-world firms change from the model is how the decision’s makers’ income is often a cost of the firm. Because, as the writer notes, production doesn’t take place in owner-operated businesses; large corporations have eight or nine levels of managements, thousands of stock-holders, and a board of directors. The inspection of the structure of a firm is important because, economic theory states that …show more content…

However, monitoring is costly and removes a firm’s profit. This is noted as the monitoring problem—the situation wherein employees may not have the best interest of the firm in mind. Professor Colander notes that companies often try to make a contract with managers wherein the incentives of both parties are made to correspond as closely as possible. The specific monitoring problem is that owners find it too costly to monitor managers to ensure that managers do what’s in the company’s best interest. And self-interested managers are interested in maximizing the firm’s profit only if the structure of the firm requires them to do

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