Profit Power Economics: A New Competitive Strategy for Creating Sustainable Wealth
Mia de Kuijper
978-0195171631
Oxford University Press/ November 2009/ hardcover/ 320 pages
List price: $34.95
“There is no better guide to strategy and use of economic power in the treacherous terrain of the contemporary economy than this intellectually courageous book. Profit Power Economics’ many counterintuitive insights require careful reading.”
–Thomas C. Schelling, 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, Distinguished University Professor University of Maryland
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Description
A new economy is emerging from the global financial crisis.
In this groundbreaking book, seasoned executive and Harvard-trained economist Mia de Kuijper guides readers through the fundamentals of this economy and explains how companies and individuals can create sustainable wealth now.
The key is wielding one of twelve contemporary sources of profit power. Control just one and you are on the road to high returns. Turning profit power into sustainable wealth requires new strategies, enumerated here,
- for choosing and valuing investments,
- structuring and managing global enterprises,
- confronting competitive threats,
- and navigating markets, which may increasingly display power law dynamics and where distributions may have “fat tails.”
To derive this book’s unique framework for achieving high returns, de Kuijper rethought parts of economic theory itself in light of the most transformative force in the new economy (dubbed the Transparent Economy by de Kuijper), namely the vanishing cost of information and connectivity.
Based on original research and illustrated with lively lessons from the experiences of the author and other successful investors and leaders, Profit Power Economics draws a detailed picture of the new competitive arena and gives readers a step-by-step approach to build (or find) exceptionally high-return enterprises and to utilize today’s shifting market dynamics to influence choice and build wealth.
Reviews
“Backed by real and path-breaking economics but also full of practical implications, this fresh approach to building exceptionally successful companies will be useful to business leaders, investors, and strategists.”–Jim Lawrence, Chief Financial Officer, Unilever
“Profit Power Economics drives to the core of the key strategic challenges that confront businesses in a rapidly mutating global economy. It informs us why an abundance of information has not prevented crucial shortages of understanding.”–Charles V.A. Collyns, Deputy Director, Research Department, International Monetary Fund
“All serious students of strategy should read Profit Power Economics and grasp these big new ideas from Mia de Kuijper. Her concepts of transparency and power nodes are vital as business navigates new organizational forms in this era of more and better information. And her rich examples offer powerful testimony to these fascinating ideas. Profit Power Economics will create quite a stir in strategy thinking.”–Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School
“A thoughtful and provocative book. Mia de Kuijper presents compelling ideas on the role of today’s more complete, more immediate, and very cheap information, and how it still does not lead to rational decision making and perfect markets.” –Arie de Geus, former corporate planning director, Royal Dutch Shell, author of The Living Company
“De Kuijper’s intriguing and thought provoking book will hearten every business person who wants to build a good company for the long term.”–Esther Dyson, entrepreneur and thought leader
“Profit Power Economics is extremely well written and nicely focused. I am guessing that the corporate world will find this very interesting.”–Benjamin M. Friedman, William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University, author of The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth
“What I liked most is the treatment of cheap information’s effect on the prospects for profit-yielding proprietary assets. The analysis of the effect of transparency on competition and industrial structure is very well developed.”–Richard E. Caves, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, Harvard University, author of Creative Industries