Book
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Synopsis
Industrial Organization, a Contract Based approach (aka IOCB) offers an extensive and an up-to-date panorama of Industrial Organization. It is aimed at advanced undergraduates, graduates, academics and practitioners with an interest in the field.
The analysis of market interactions, business strategies and public policy is performed using the standard framework of game theory and the recent advances of contract theory and information economics.
The book is written from a European perspective, set side by side with the US experience. The reader is introduced to all important models of the current research literature within a common simple structure (cf. TOC). As the adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. We thus try to convey a graphical overview of the topics we approach. The 8 gray boxes indicate Parts while the other boxes more or less refer to the 25 chapters. Locations on the chart do not respect truthfully the content, rather they loosely reflect connexions with each other.
Specifications
The extensive 500+ bibliography covers all landmark articles. The book contains 300k+ words, runs around 1000 pages according to typesetting options, contains 1500+ cross-references and 700+ index entries. Time-wise, it took me about 5 full years of work, or 10k hours i.e, 10 hours per page of final product. Money-wise, the output comes at a total cost of approximatively 200k€ to the Catalan Government, my official employer i.e., less than 3 cent per inhabitant or 200€ per page of final product (Kudos to Andreu Mas-Collel for devising the contractual scheme I currently enjoy).
IOCB 
I just read about your open source approach. I am working a project and running into similar incentive issues as you. Except, perhaps, I do like the idea of a bound version…
Did you consider publishing through Google and having it available at Amazon? It would seem to me that this could be a compliment. You get the option of pricing it low, and then it is available to those who like the formal, printed copy. I would think you could still open source it. I am thinking about suc issues. Anyway, good luck.
Cliff
15/12/2010 at 17:05
To publish an open access textbook is a very nice idea, congratulations. I am not sure whether this conforms with the homo oeconomicus assumption but it may be the case by getting more reknowned.
Yet, I am disappointed by your relatively standard homo oeconomicus application. The assumptions are blatantly wrong as nobel prize winner Herbert Simon and many others have shown in psychology, sociology and behavioral economics. The time is ripe to skip neoclassics and the homo oeconomicus and to proceed to a new paradigm; my guess is, evolutionary economics will be the more fruitful next paradigm with better connections to the other behavioral sciences. Understanding innovation processes and predicting innovation success will be the ultimate test of economic paradigms – that’s my guess as a behavioral scientist and innovation researcher. Eric Beinhocker’s book “The origin of wealth” (2006) looks ahead for such a new paradigm; join him and the other evolutionary scientists – even in a textbook.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang
16/12/2010 at 10:28
Dear Wolfgang
Thank you for your comment but I stand by my choices. As I explain in the open-source post, I believe I made a rational choice, thus behaving like a perfect homo oeconomicus. Next, the time is ripe for alternatives to neoclassical economics to come up with books that explain the world as it is. Your are welcome to follow in my footsteps by taking my source files and working out the same IO book from an evolutionary economics perspective.
Yours, Nicolas
nboccard
16/12/2010 at 10:42
Nicolas,
Thank you for giving us access to your text. Is this version different to the one posted on Google Books? If so, how?
Cheers,
Rafael
Rafael
18/12/2010 at 01:35
Tx Rafael
The 2010 version is the second edition whereas the one on display at google books is the first edition published in 2006. It is not for sale anymore.
nboccard
18/12/2010 at 09:14
Does this book deal only with theory (like all self respecting neoclassicals) or does it have any contact with empirical evidence about actual firm behavior?
Asad Zaman
19/12/2010 at 12:16
This sounds really cool! I also think it would be a good idea to have the option for people to buy it like a regular book, though, just for appearances. And I say this as an Open Source advocate.
ramblingperfectionist
09/01/2011 at 20:12
hola Nicolas!! soy el argentino que tuviste como alumno hace un par de años en economia de la udg en micro 2, quiero hacerte una pregunta de politica industrial, en que direccion de email te lo puedo hacer?, un abrazo y espero tu respuesta, merci beaucoup.
JOSE LUIS
22/02/2011 at 00:02
Cher Nicolas, I was looking for an updated book in Industrial Organization (more recent that Tirole 1988) and I must admit that I had a hard time. I came across your book and I was amazed by its comprehensiveness! I have not read the book in its entirety but my first impression is really good. My fields of research are Experimental Economics and Organizational Economics but I lost track of recent research in IO and I thought I needed an extensive textbook for that.
By the way, I am also a frenchman leaving abroad (I spent 10 years in Spain by the way).
Good luck with your book!
Brice Corgnet,
Economic Science Institute
Chapman University.California
Brice Corgnet (Economic Science Institute-California)
07/04/2012 at 23:18
Hi Brice
Thank for the encouragement. Spread the word.
Nicolas
nboccard
10/04/2012 at 11:09
Dear Nicolas, I bought your book specially for the Contract-based approach, in which I feel still unconfortable with. My first overview tells me that I can apply it to advanced undergraduate course. If I am to introduce students to the micro of contract, and then to its application to horizontally integrated firms, which chapters you suggest readings?
Hope I haven´t take you that much.
Best regards,
,
Carlos A Cinquetti
08/07/2013 at 23:23