The correspondence between Baumol and Galbraith (1957–1958) An unsuspected source of managerial theories of the firm

Alexandre Chirat

No 2021-35, EconomiX Working Papers from University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX

Abstract: Baumol’s impact on the development of managerial theories of the firm is investigated here through material found in Galbraith’s archives. In 1957 Galbraith published a paper claiming that the impact of macroeconomic policies varies with market structures (competitive versus oligopolistic). That publication prompted Baumol (1958b) to send Galbraith a manuscript dealing extensively with a crucial question of managerial theories of the firm, namely, the trade-off between sales and profits. I argue that Baumol’s critiques and Galbraith’s answers largely explain the way Baumol (1958a, 1959) framed his alternative model of the behavior of corporations. He reasoned in terms of maximization of sales with a profit constraint as their main objective. In return, Business Behavior, Value and Growth fostered the development of Marris’ (1964) and Galbraith’s (1967) theories of the corporation. While Tullock (1978) provides a narrative in which the sales maximization hypothesis has two main branches – Baumol for the one and Galbraith-Marris for the other – the paper demonstrates that these branches are intimately connected.

Keywords: Baumol; –; Galbraith; –; Theory; of; the; firm; –; Managerialism; –; Marginalisme (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B21 B22 D43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe, nep-pke and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://economix.fr/pdf/dt/2021/WP_EcoX_2021-35.pdf (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:drm:wpaper:2021-35

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in EconomiX Working Papers from University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Valerie Mignon ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).