Prices

The sixteen essays in this collection are organized around five themes. The first group is concerned with the pricing implications of recent developments in the theory of the firm. The subject of the second group is wage-price guidelines, in theory and practice. The third set deals with pricing in regulated industries, with special attention to marginal cost pricing. Marketing models and empirical studies of pricing behavior are considered in the fourth set of essays. And the final group, closely related to this, deals with the rationality properties of business pricing decisions and the implications of pricing practices for antitrust enforcement.If a common view on pricing emerges from these provocative and timely papers; it is that an eclectic approach to pricing theories, policies, and practices appears at this stage to be appropriate, since neither neoclassical theory nor recent amendments, extensions, or alternatives to it appear individually rich enough to embrace the full range of variety that pricing behavior affords.

Almarin Phillips was Professor Emeritus of public policy, economics, and law at the University of Pennsylvania. Oliver E. Williamson is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.