Mark Casson

• University of Reading

This book is the first to systematically examine the sources of medieval statistics. It will be useful as a handbook for researchers in financial and cultural history, as a history of financial record-keeping, and as a review of recent research into medieval finance and accounting based on statistical sources. Medieval statistics provide a unique...

This paper fills a gap in recent literature on productivity and regional development by examining the determinants of productivity in primary industries in English regions during the Middle Ages. It provides a comprehensive review of relevant literature on the tin, lead and silver mining industries in Medieval England. Modern studies of productivit...

Research Summary Cross‐flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) occur when firms invest in each other's home countries, affecting the terms of competition in each market. They are explained by internalization theory but have never been comprehensively investigated. This article models cross‐investment in a duopoly with differentiated products. The...

Research summary International business strategy and international management are two distinct but related fields of study. This article explores the connections between them. It shows how internalization theory can act as a bridge between them. The key is to analyze not only core activities, such as production, marketing and R&D, but support servi...

Capitalism is a topic with many thematic strands and multiple geographical and chronological dimensions. As a result, the time, location and drivers of its emergence are the subject of much debate. This book takes a novel approach to the history of capitalism. It provides a series of case studies with the aim of further broadening the historical an...

This chapter considers what factors contributed to the survival and success of the leading families, and to the decline of others. It identifies the crucial role of entrepreneurs in founding and sustaining the fortunes of leading families. A key finding of the chapter is the distinction between old aristocratic wealth and new mercantile wealth. Som...

Chapter 3 analyses the economic topography of the town, building on the results presented in Chapter 2. It investigates how far occupations were specialised in different part of the town. It constructs profiles of all the Cambridge parishes, showing how many properties were located in each, how much rent those properties paid, to whom they paid it,...

One of the most important manuscripts surviving from thirteenth-century England, the corpus of documents known as the Hundred Rolls for Cambridge have been incomplete until the recent discovery of an additional roll. This invaluable volume replaces the previous inaccurate transcription by the record commission of 1818 and provides new translations...

Chapter 7 connects the book to work on the subsequent history of Cambridge, including that on the development of the University. It considers the extent to which trends identified in the Hundred Rolls continued into the fourteenth century. Cambridge adjusted to the decline in its agricultural trade after the Black Death by developing its service se...

Chapter 2 investigates the significance of the property market in medieval Cambridge. It considers how far the property market at this time anticipated the urban property markets of today. Detailed information on the Cambridge property market is provided in the Hundred Rolls. A unique feature of the Rolls, compared to other sources such as rentals,...

The chapter provides new translations of these previously unpublished documents.

This book examines the evolution of compassionate capitalism in medieval England, using a unique and comprehensive source of information, the Cambridge Hundred Rolls. It demonstrates how compassionate capitalism developed through the bequest of rental income on property to charitable and religious institutions, such as hospitals, abbeys and friarie...

Family dynasties were important players in the property market of medieval Cambridge, the Hundred Rolls reveal. Using a wide range of archival sources this chapter examines the inter family relationships and cross family connections of 23 families identified from the rolls, including the Bartons, Blancgernuns and Dunnings. Strategies by which famil...

Chapter 6 examines Cambridge’s performance at a regional and national level. Cambridge’s position relative to other leading towns nearby, such as Ely, Bury St Edmunds, King’s Lynn, Huntingdon and St Ives, is examined. The competitiveness of its market is evaluated through assessment of its transport connections and the local charters for market and...

It may seem like a recent trend, but businesses have been practising compassionate capitalism for nearly a thousand years. Based on the newly discovered historical documents on Cambridge's sophisticated urban property market during the Commercial Revolution in the thirteenth century, this book explores how successful entrepreneurs employed the weal...

One of the most important manuscripts surviving from thirteenth-century England, the corpus of documents known as the Hundred Rolls for Cambridge have been incomplete until the recent discovery of an additional roll. This invaluable volume replaces the previous inaccurate transcription by the record commission of 1818 and provides new translations...

This article engages in a methodological experiment by using historical evidence to challenge a common misperception about internalization theory.The theory has often been criticized for maintaining that it assumes a hierarchically organized MNE based on knowledge flowing from the home country. This is not an accurate description of how global firm...

While entrepreneurs are increasingly recognized as important participants in the medieval economy, their philanthropic activities have received less attention than those of the gentry and nobility. This article identifies the contribution that the study of medieval entrepreneurs can make to broader business history debates surrounding the identity...

Property rents in medieval towns were an important source of income for property-owners including the king, local lords and civic authorities, and a significant expense for local residents. This article examines the causes of variation in property rents in fourteenth-century Hull, an important international port with unique records on plot dimensio...

This article engages in a methodological experiment by using historical evidence to challenge a common misperception about internalization theory. The theory has often been criticized for maintaining that it assumes a hierarchically organized MNE based on knowledge flowing from the home country. This is not an accurate description of how global fir...

This paper reviews the scope for economic modelling in international business. It argues for a multi-level theory based on classical internalisation theory. The theory extends the ‘systems approach’ to the multinational enterprise in which modular activities, such as production, marketing and R&D, are linked by flows of semi-processed products and...

There is ongoing debate about the applicability of internalisation theory to Emerging Market Multinationals (EMNEs). Internalisation theory normally describes multinationals exploiting superior knowledge directly abroad rather than licensing its use to foreign firms. We argue that EMNEs can be explained readily in terms of internalisation theory. T...

Ritika Prasad , Tracks of change: railways and everyday life in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Pages x + 315, including figures 12 + tables 5. £60 hardback. - Volume 32 Issue 3 - MARK CASSON

Edited by Akrivou and Sison The Challenges of Capitalism for Virtue Ethics and the Common Good: Interdisciplinary Perspectives There is an undeniable tension between purely economic and ethical ways of valuing and acting that have been in place since the modern capitalist society evolved. This book is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary contrib...

The division of labour is a central concept in international business (IB), although it is sometimes known by other names. Its significance was first noted by the eighteenth-century-economist Adam Smith. He defined it as the sub-division of a complex task into a set of simpler tasks that can be performed by unskilled labour or machines. In IB diffe...

The economic approach to international business (IB) studies is very powerful. It can analyse incredibly complex situations in a remarkably simple way. But some situations are so complex that the models themselves become complicated too. This chapter examines three types of complexity in IB, associated with economies of scale, corporate taxation, a...

The most successful firms in the global economy almost all exert a form of monopoly power. The source of their power is often described as ownership advantage, competitive advantage or firm-specific advantage. In practice these terms mean much the same thing. They indicate that a firm possesses some special knowledge or reputation (or other asset)...

Location is a key concept in international business. The locations at which a firm controls production determine whether it is multinational or not. Firms often locate production away from the markets they plan to serve. Trade is therefore essential to deliver their products to the customers. Policy-makers often advocate ?free trade?; but what exac...

Global rivalry is a key element in international business (IB). This is particularly true in high-technology industries where substantial sunk costs are committed to R&D. The same applies to marketing-intensive industries where firms invest in trademarks and brands. When two firms are rivals, success often depends on first-mover advantage. Economis...

The literature on international business (IB) studies relies heavily on concepts from business strategy and makes relatively little use of concepts from economics. This is a mistake. This chapter introduces the concepts used by economists to analyse IB issues. It describes ?how economists think? and what they do and explains why their approach is s...

?Who owns what?? is a crucial issue in international business. A factory owned by an independent local firm is very different from a factory owned by a foreign multinational. Ownership is often assumed to confer control, but owners can assign the right of control to others if they wish. The headquarters of a multinational firm, for example, can del...

This chapter applies the techniques of economic modelling to the complex issue of optimising ownership and its associated contractual arrangements. It shows that the optimisation of ownership by a firm is conditional on the location of its production activities, and vice versa. It demonstrates how a complex optimisation problem of this kind can be...

This chapter addresses the questions: ?What is an economic model??, ?How are economic models built?? and ?Why are they so useful in international business studies??. It shows that economic models are particularly useful for analysing complex problems, such as competition and cooperation, where several firms, rather than just a single firm, are invo...

This book has one main conclusion: that IB researchers should make greater use of economic models. There are plenty of reasons for not using economic models, but most of them are bogus, and the rest are exaggerated. Economics in IB has received more ?outsider? criticism in the last twenty years than it has ?insider? development. Insiders are well a...

The international business (IB) literature rarely questions why firms exist. Yet economic activity does not require firms; it simply requires that each asset or resource is controlled by a specific individual, and that each individual can take account of other individuals? plans when taking their decisions. Firms are not individuals, but are contro...

The evolution of modern capitalist society is increasingly being marked by an undeniable and consistent tension between pure economic and ethical ways of valuing and acting. This book is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary contribution that challenges the assumptions of capitalist business and society. It ultimately reflects on how to restore be...

Internalization theory is usually applied at the firm level to analyse FDI, licensing and subcontracting. This paper extends it to the industry level. It synthesises internalization theory and oligopoly theory. It analyses a global industry where firms innovate competitively, and freely enter and exit the industry. It presents a formal model which...

No abstract is available for this article.

This paper argues that the intellectual contribution of Alan Rugman reflects his distinctive research methodology. Alan Rugman trained as an economist, and relied heavily on economic principles throughout his work. He believed that one good theory was sufficient for IB studies, and that theory, he maintained, was internalisation theory. He rejected...

Demonstrating why economic modelling is so important in understanding international business, this stimulating and highly original book sets out a new and exciting research agenda in international business studies. The author explains what economic models are, how they are constructed and the way in which they can be used. It illustrates how models...

Although medieval rentals have been extensively studied, few scholars have used them to analyse variations in the rents paid on individual properties within a town. It has been claimed that medieval rents did not reflect economic values or market forces, but were set according to social and political rather than economic criteria, and remained ossi...

This paper examines how and why the Korean online gaming industry gained dominance in the global market, despite US and Japanese competition in related gaming sectors. It examines how far this was stimulated by government intervention and how far it was due to private entrepreneurs. Using case studies of innovative firms, it argues that, whilst int...

This article summarizes the commentary essay and two research articles comprising the special research forum on “The Social Performance and Responsibilities of Entrepreneurship.” A commentary essay by William J. Baumol addresses the social responsibilities of successful entrepreneurs. A research article by Laura J. Spence examines the social respon...

The internalisation theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE) is a significant intellectual legacy of Ronald Coase. US direct investment in Europe became highly political in the 1960s, and neoclassical trade theory had no explanation. A theory of the multiplant enterprise was required, and internalisation theory filled this gap. Using Coasian ec...

This chapter presents a simple econometric model of the medieval English economy, focusing on the relationship between money, prices and incomes. The model is estimated using annual data for the period 1263–1520 obtained from various sources. The start date is determined by the availability of continuous runs of annual data, while the finishing dat...

The origins of enterprise are often associated with the Industrial Revolution, but this article presents evidence of entrepreneurial activities from a much earlier date – the medieval period. Between 1250 and 1500 the church, merchants and members of the royal court all engaged in activities that demonstrated the entrepreneurial characteristics of...

Purpose – This paper aims to argue that management capability is a complement to ownership advantage. Ownership advantage determines the potential of the firm, and management capability governs the fulfilment of this potential through overcoming barriers to growth. The economic theory of the firm is central to the theory of the multinational enterp...

Entrepreneurship studies is a booming area of research, but, as previous commentators have noted, the literature has become pluralistic and diffuse. There is a profusion of concepts, many of them ill defined. Theory and empiricism are only weakly linked. There is a distinct lack of historical perspective. It is proposed that entrepreneurship studie...

Doctor-patient jokes are universally popular because of the information asymmetries within the diagnostic relationship. We contend that entrepreneurial diagnosis is present in markets where consumers are unable to diagnose their own problems and, instead, rely on the entrepreneur to diagnose them. Although it is widely recognized that consumers fac...

Introducing marketing explicitly into the internalisation theory of the multinational enterprise considerably extends the power of the theory. In particular, it enables a comparison of marketing-led and technology-led multinationals and highlights the benefits of collaboration between them. It facilitates the analysis of outsourcing, and in particu...

This final book by Tom McCraw follows the pattern of his Pulitzer Prize–winning work on the Prophets of Regulation: it presents a biographical approach to a key issue in US economic history. It focuses on the creation of Federal financial institutions in the new republic, and reflects his admiration for the men who designed and promoted them. The b...

Stuart Sweeney’s Financing India’s Imperial Railways, 1875–1914 studies the political debates and cultural conflicts surrounding British railway investment in India in the years of high imperialism. The contested policy issues include the appropriate roles of public and private interests in railway construction and operation, the distribution betwe...

The role of the entrepreneur is the most fundamental issue addressed by the modern theory of the firm.Coordination, an improvement in the allocation of resources, in a volatile economy depends on the continuing synthesis of new information.Processing this information requires a division of labor between and among observers and synthesizers. The syn...

This paper offers an integrated analysis of outsourcing, offshoring, and foreign direct investment within a systems view of international business. This view takes the supply chain rather than the firm as the basic unit of analysis. It argues that competition in the global economy selects supply chains that maximise the joint profit of all the firm...

Since the banking crisis of 2008 the global economy is perceived as riskier than before. Firms that cannot manage risks have withdrawn from countries in which they previously invested. These problems are not new. For centuries firms have invested in risky foreign environments, and many of them have succeeded. This paper reviews the risk management...