The Modern Corporation and Economic Theory

Abstract

The original purpose of this paper was to attempt to survey and to consolidate the economic theory of the large, growing corporation as this has developed since the publication of Managerial Capitalism¹ and to relate the synthetic result to the various problems with which both phases of the present project are concerned. In the event, the relevant body of theory has in the author’s opinion been so much further developed by the contributions of other participants to Phase I that a good deal of the original paper seemed redundant. It was therefore decided instead to provide a general discussion of the theory of the growth of the firm in a separate Introduction and to confine the present paper to related issues. The paper has been completely revised since the Long Island Conference (see Preface) and has been substantially influenced not only by the Conference dis­cussions but also by all the other papers.