Economic Stories of the Agri-foods Firm
Date
From: Thursday November 27, 2014, 5:00 pm
To: Thursday November 27, 2014, 8:00 pm
A practitioner’s perspective on the dismal science, with Jay Horton giving an outsider’s perspective of the profession from the inside. Jay asks:
Which economic models best explain what’s going on in the world of agri-food firms? Axel Leijonhufvud, the Swedish economist, once remarked that neoclassical economics models “smart people in unbelievably simple situations,” while the real world involves “simple people [coping] with incredibly complex situations”.
Do the overlapping narratives of microeconomics, behavioural economics, principal-agency economics, and transaction cost economics explain what’s going on inside firms? How is the work of modern thinkers relevant to the agri-foods firm: economists such as Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, and Bengt Holmström; management scientists such as Chester Barnard, George Dantzig and Herbert Simon, and writers such as Søren Kierkegaard and Franz Kafka?
Jay will recount stories of applying economics in his 30-year consulting career advising Boards and
- management on how to adapt to change, which is the central problem of economic organisation:
- Making complex resource allocation decisions under uncertainty – major capital
- investment/divestment decisions, or restructuring, or M&A;
- Deciding how to cope with growth – adding capacity, or doing more with what’s available; and
- Determining the best strategy when there are many choices available.…..
