Edith Penrose: Seeing into the “Insides” of the Firm

Richard Langlois

No 2024-05, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: Edith Penrose was far from underappreciated in management theory, where she was considered the inspiration for more than one research program. But she was virtually unknown in economics, the discipline in which she was trained and in which she considered herself to be working. This essay chronicles the life and work of Edith Penrose. It examines the streams of thought she influenced – and didn’t influence. As a special bonus, the essay also considers another underappreciated economist, George Richardson, who built on Penrose’s work and overcame some of its limitations. Following Brian Loasby, the essay ultimately argues for understanding Penrose and Richardson as industrial organization economists in the tradition of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall.

JEL-codes: B25 B31 B52 B53 L2 L65 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-ind
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2024-05.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:2024-05

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics University of Connecticut 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1063 Storrs, CT 06269-1063. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark McConnel ().