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From eBay to the stock market to the unexpected
twists of the world's post-communist twists of the world's
post-communist economies, market structure has suddenly
become quite visible. We have occasion to wonder, "What
makes markets work? How important are they? What can we
do to improve them? And how can we harness them to other
applications?"
In something akin to a nature walk, John
McMillan takes us on a guided tour, pointing out features
of the landscape we rarely notice. With examples ranging
from a camel trading fair in India to the $20 million per
day Aalsmeer flower market to the global trade in AIDS drugs.
McMillan shows us markets in all their varieties -- the
small and the large, the simple and the overwhelmingly complex,
the successful and the unsuccessful. Further, he brings
them together to show how these markets combine to form
the global economy.
Markets provoke clashing opinions. Critics
denounce them as the source of exploitation and poverty.
Extreme proponents extol them as the font of liberty and
prosperity. Eschewing ideology, McMillan spells out why
markets are neither magical nor immoral, but rather imperfect
yet vitally important tools. They can fail, and often do,
but they represent the best way we've discovered thus far
for improving our living standards.
John McMillan is the Jonathan B. Lovelace
Professor of Economics at Stanford University's Graduate
School of Business.
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