New goods are at the heart of economic progress. The eleven essays in this volume include historical treatments of new goods and their diffusion; practical exercises in measurement addressed to recent and ongoing innovations; and real-world methods of devising quantitative adjustments for quality change. The lead article in Part I contains a striking analysis of the history of light over two millenia. Other essays in Part I develop new price indexes for automobiles back to 1906; trace the role of the air conditioner in the development of the American south; and treat the germ theory of disease as an economic innovation. In Part II essays measure the economic impact of more recent innovations, including anti-ulcer drugs, new breakfast cereals, and computers. Part III explores methods and defects in the treatment of quality change in the official price data of the United States, Canada, and Japan. This pathbreaking volume will interest anyone who studies economic growth, productivity, and the American standard of living.

Public goods are typically defined only in reference to the good itself but, as this book argues, the public goods can be better understood if contextual variables are incorporated. This book discusses the production and provision of public goods. It asserts that changes related to public goods are better understood if the category of goods are not decided solely by the properties of the good itself. We also need to focus on how the enabled utility of a good is influenced by the production and the provision of the good. The book opens with a brief introduction to common conceptions of public goods and a review of the existing literature - highlighting the limitations of current definitions of public goods. It presents a new multi-layered approach to public goods. This has implications for the discourse on public goods and for our understanding of the societal and environmental impact of public goods. The implications are illustrated in several areas; public goods in ancient history, privatization, innovation, competitiveness and prices, democracy and political standards, and economic growth. The book provides a provocative argument for a new way to analyze public goods which will appeal to scholars and students interested in the economic analysis of public goods, arguments regarding the privatizing or nationalizing of production and services, and method of modelling and measuring sustainable business activities.

Driven by a counterintuitive thesis that has been highlighted in both The New Yorker and The New York Times¸ The Knockoff Economy is an engrossing and highly entertaining tour through the economic sectors where piracy both rules and invigorates.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) attempts to answer the question of how much more (or less) income does a consumer require to be as well off in period 1 as in period 0 given changes in prices, changes in the quality of goods, and the introduction of new goods (or the disappearance of existing goods). In this paper I explain the theory of cost-of-living indices and demonstrate how new goods should be included using the classical theory of Hicks and Rothbarth. The correct price to use for the good in the pre-intro- duction period is a virtual' price which sets demand to zero. Estimation of this virtual price requires estimation of a demand function which in turn provides the expenditure function which allows exact calucation of the cost of living index. The data requirements and need to specify and estimate a demand function for a new brand among many existing brands requires extensive data and some new econometric methods which may have proven obstacles to the inclusion of new goods in the CPI up to this point. As an example I use the introduction of a new cereal brand by General Mills in 1989-Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I find the virtual price is about 2 times the actual price of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios and that increase in consumer surplus is substantial. Based on some simplifying approximations, I find that CPI may be overstated for cereal by about 25% because of its neglect of the effect of new brands. When I take imperfect competition into account I find that the increase in consumer welfare is only 85% as high with perfect competition so CPI for cereal would still be 20% too high

As one of the first books to distill the economics of information and networks into practical business strategies, this is a guide to the winning moves that can help business leaders--from writers, lawyers and finance professional to executives in the entertainment, publishing and hardware and software industries-- navigate successfully through the information economy.

"When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a 'dismal science,' is a positive force for the common good. Economists are rewarded for writing technical papers in scholarly journals, not joining in public debates. But Tirole says we urgently need economists to engage with the many challenges facing society, helping to identify our key objectives and the tools needed to meet them. To show how economics can help us realize the common good, Tirole shares his insights on a broad array of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Providing a rich account of how economics can benefit everyone, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society"--Provided by publisher.