Production Process and Technical Change
Cambridge University Press, 8/4/2009
EAN 9780521119733, ISBN10: 0521119731
Paperback, 236 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
Language: English
This book, first published in 1992, attempts to unify the economic analysis of the production process in order to understand the effects of technical change. It is both an analytical representation of the production process, taking into account the temporal, organizational, and qualitative dimensions of production, and a fact-finding model for studying the economic effects of technical change. The inclusion of temporal and organizational aspects allows the author to examine the analytical implications of research on the nature of firms and the characteristics of technical change, whilst the model is used to analyse technical changes that involve variations of scale or degrees of flexibility. This book deals with themes much discussed in research in industrial economics and management studies and is an important contribution to bringing these two areas of research closer together, providing a general framework for the study of production processes.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
scope and outline
Part I. Basic Concepts and Hypotheses
1. Introduction
2. Technical change and the three economic dimensions of production
3. Production and time
preliminary definitions
4. Division of labour, specialization and economic efficiency
Part II. The Model and its Application
5. Introduction
6. Production as a sequential process
7. The matrix of production elements
8. Transformation of the matrix of production elements for empirical research
9. Towards empirical implementation
some case studies
Part III. Economies of Scale, Economies of Scope and Production Flexibility
10. Introduction
11. Economies of scale
12. Flexible production systems and economies of scope
References
Index.