Entrepreneurship and the Market Economy: A New Perspective

This innovative book proposes a new way of analysing the market process, focusing on market-making entrepreneurs. Synthesising key insights from mainstream economics, modern entrepreneurship theory and network theory, Mark Casson examines how market segmentation driven by location and culture generates opportunities for profit for entrepreneurs. Building on theories from John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall and Maurice Allais, Casson applies modern mathematical and linear programming techniques to solve key economic issues. He explores how entrepreneurs intermediate trade and appropriate profit through exploiting differences between wholesale and retail prices. Drawing from diverse alternative approaches to entrepreneurship, he presents a wide-ranging view of the field and identifies important avenues for future research. The book ultimately illustrates a novel entrepreneurship model that uses the connections between entrepreneurs, customers and producers to predict profit margins, price dispersions and the micro-structure of markets. Providing clear insight into both the operation of the market process and the practical behaviour of entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship and the Market Economy is an essential resource for academics and students across economics and business studies.