Profile Major Works Resources

Oliver E. Williamson, 1932-

Photo of O.E. Williamson

Pioneering "New Institutionalist" economist.

Originating from Illinos, Oliver E. Williamson obtained his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon under Herbert Simon and Ronald Coase in 1963.   He was successively professor at Pennsylvania from 1965, then Yale from 1983, and finally at University of California, Berkeley since 1988.

Oliver E. Williamson won the Nobel Memorial prize in 2009  "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm".  He shared the prize with Elinor Ostrom,

 

  


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Major Works of Oliver E. Williamson

  • "Managerial Discretion and Business Behavior", 1963, AER
  • "Innovation and Market Structure", 1964, RAND [rand]
  • The Economics of Discretionary Behavior: Managerial objectives in a theory of the firm, 1964.
  • "Defense Contracts: An Analysis of Adaptive Response", 1965, RAND [rand]
  • "The Economics of Defense Contracting: Incentives and Performance", 1967, in R.N. McKean, Issues in Defense Economics [nber]
  • "Economics as an Anti-Trust Defense: The welfare trade-offs", 1968, AER
  • Corporate Control and Business Behavior: An inquiry into the effects of organization form on enterprise behavior, 1970.
  • "Administrative Decision Making and Pricing: Externality and Compensation Analysis Applied", in J. Margolis, editor, Analysis of Public Output [nber]
  • "The Vertical Integration of Production: market failure considerations", 1971, AER
  • "Antitrust Enforcement and the Modern Corporation", 1972, in V. Fuchs, editor, Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect [nber]
  • "Markets and Hierarchies: Some elementary considerations", 1973, AER
  • Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and antitrust implications, 1975.
  • "Franchise Bidding for Natural Monopolies: in general and with respect to CATV", 1976, Bell JE [pdf]
  • "Transaction Cost Economics: The governance of contractual relations", 1979, J Law Econ [pdf]
  • "The Economics of Organization: The transaction cost approach", 1981, American J of Sociology [pdf]
  • "The Modern Corporation: Origins, evolution attributes", 1981, JEL [pdf]
  • "Credible Commitments: Using hostages to support exchange", 1983, AER
  • "Corporate Governance", 1984, Yale Law Jl [pdf]
  • The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, 1985. [intro]
  • "Vertical Integration and Related Variations on a Transaction- Cost Economics Theme", 1986, in Stiglitz and Mathewson, editors, New Developments in the Analysis of Market Structure [pdf]
  • "Transaction Cost Economcs", 1987, JEBO
  • "Mergers, Acquisition and Leveraged Buyouts: an efficiency assessment", 1987 [pdf]
  • "Economics and Sociology: Promoting a dialog", 1988, in Farkas and England, editors, Industries, Firms and Jobs
  • "A Comparison of Alternative Approaches to Economic Organization", 1990, J of Institutional and Theoretical Economics
  • Organization theory : from Chester Barnard to the present and beyond., 1990.
  • "The Logic of Economic Organization", 1991, in Williamson and Winter, editors, Nature of the Firm
  • "Economic Institutions: Spontaneous and intentional governance", 1991, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization
  • "Markets, hierarchies, and the modern corporation: an unfolding perspective", 1993, JEBO
  • "The Institutions and Governance of Economic Development and Reform", 1995, Proc of World Bank Annual Conf  [pdf]
  • The Mechanisms of Governance, 1996.
  • "Transaction Cost Economics: how it works, where it is headed", 1998, De Economist [pdf]
  • "Public and Private Bureaucracies: A transctions cost economics perspective", 1999, JLEO [pdf]
  • "Human Actors and Economic Organization", 1999 [pdf]
  • "New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead", 2000, JEL [pdf]
  • "Contract and Economic Organization", 2000, Revue d'économie industrielle [pers]
  • "The Economics of Governance: an Overview", [pdf]
  • "The Theory of the Firm as Governance Structure: From Choice to Contract", 2002 [pdf]
  • "The Lens of Contract: private ordering", 2002 [pdf]
  • "Transaction Cost Economics and Economic Sociology", 2003 [pdf]
  • "Transaction Cost Economics: An introduction", 2007 [pdf] [pdf]
  • "Pragmatic Methodology: A Sketch, with Applications to Transaction Cost Economics", 2007 [pdf]
  • "Transaction Cost Economics: The natural progression" 2009 [nobel]
  • "The Transaction Cost Economics Project", 2014, Montenegrin JE [pdf]

 


HET

 

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Resources on Oliver Williamson

  • Oliver E. Williamson's homepage at UC Berkeley [old]
  • Williamson's faculty page Berkeley Haas
  • "An Interview with Oliver Williamson", 2007, J of Institutional Economics [pdf]
  • 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize website (Nobel.org): press release, facts, autobiography, lecture
  • Announcement in NY Times, 2009 [article]
  • William biography at AEA
  • Williamson papers ideas/repec
  • Williamson papers at NBER
  • William papers at RAND
  • Citation on Williamson's induction in NAS
  • "Realism and comprehension in economics: A footnote to an exchange between Oliver E. Williamson and Herbert A. Simon", by M. Augier and J.G. March 2008, JEBO [pdf]
  • "The history of transaction cost economics and its recent developments", Lukasz Hardt, 2009, Erasmus J of Phil & Econ [pdf]
  • "Williamson and the Austrians" by Peter G. Klein, 2009 [mis]
  • O.E. Williamson at Econ Journal Watch [pdf]
  • Williamson entry at Nobel Prize Internet Archive
  • Williamson entry at Concise Encycl of Economics, LibertyFund
  • Williamson entry at Britannica
  • Wikipedia
 
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