VeraSage

Antitrust Law

Dominick T. Armentano. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure (second edition); and Antitrust: The Case for Repeal (revised second edition). Among the best books available repudiating antitrust policy and the unfounded economic assumptions that underlie it. They explode one myth after another, with historical accuracy and empirical evidence. After reading these volumes, you will understand why the majority of economists reject so many antitrust laws.

Robert H. Bork. Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War With Itself. Judge Robert Bork provides a critique of the antitrust laws, and how they do not, for the most part, benefit consumers or increase economic welfare.

John R. Lott, Jr. Are Predatory Commitments Credible?: Who Should the Courts Believe? Lott conducts an empirical analysis of the accusation of predatory pricing over a 30-year period, concluding that predatory pricing is not an important phenomenon among profit-maximizing firms, thereby shattering one of the enduring myths of business folklore.

Richard Posner. Antitrust Law (second edition). Judge Richard Posner’s first edition of this work was considered a jeremiad against antitrust practices. In this edition, Posner admits the laws are here to stay, makes the argument that they exist to promote economic welfare, and offers new perspectives on dealing with vexing questions of the new economy, such as software, communication companies, and Internet service providers.

George J. Stigler. The Economist as Preacher and Other Essays; and Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist. This 1982 Nobel Prize–winning economist appeared before Congress in 1950 advocating that U.S. Steel Corporation be broken up. At the beginning of his career, Stigler was a proponent of vigorous antitrust enforcement. After studying the topic for most of his career, he concluded that the laws were counterproductive. These books are not his more scholarly works on the topic, but provide insight into why he changed his mind on antitrust laws over the course of his distinguished career.

Economics

Gary S. Becker. The Economics of Life. Becker is the 1992 Nobel Laureate, and this book is a compendium of his popular monthly columns from Business Week. Becker is famous for applying economics to a wide variety of public policy issues, from discrimination and marriage and family, to crime and punishment.

David D. Friedman. Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (second edition); and Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life. David Friedman is Milton and Rose Friedman’s son and an outstanding economist from Santa Clara University. Both of these books are an excellent read, the latter being especially entertaining.

Milton and Rose Friedman. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement; Capitalism and Freedom; and Two Lucky People. Milton and Rose Friedman are each eminent economists, and these books are classics, and a must-read for anyone who wants an understanding of how free markets work.

**TOP CHOICE George Gilder. Recapturing the Spirit of Enterprise; and Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition of the Classic. In Baker’s opinion, Gilder is the best writer and thinker on economics, sociology, technology, and entrepreneurship that you will find. Discovery of his work, Wealth and Poverty, in 1981, forever altered his vision of the way the world works. These two books are Gilder’s classics, but he has written many others. If you read only two books from this entire list, read anything by Gilder—twice. Gilder is a senior fellow at Seattle’s Discovery Institute (http://www.discovery.org).

Henry Hazlitt. Economics in One Lesson. This book is a classic, originally published in 1946, written by a self-taught economist who worked as a journalist. F.A. Hayek said of this work, “It is a brilliant performance. It says precisely the things which need most saying and says them with a rare courage and integrity. I know of no other modern book from which the intelligent layman can learn so much about the basic truths of economics in so short a time.”

John Kay. The Business of Economics; Foundations of Corporate Success: How Business Strategies Add Value; and Culture and Prosperity. Kay is one of Great Britain’s leading economists, currently a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. Quite adept at explaining economic theory and how it applies to real-life business situations, his books are not easy reads, but worth the effort to understand how economic theory and business really are complements. Learn more about Kay at http://www.johnkay.com.

Steven E. Landsburg. The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday Life; Price Theory and Applications (fifth edition); and Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values, and the Meaning of Life. Like David Friedman, Landsburg is an incredibly brilliant economist, besides being an excellent and entertaining writer. He will no doubt challenge, and in many cases persuade, you with his cogent analysis of contemporary issues. Fair Play is a book written for his young daughter, and relates complex economic issues down to the child’s sandbox—a truly fascinating read. To read Landsburg’s Everyday Economics columns, go to http://www.slate.com.

Steven D. Levitt. Freakonomics. Levitt is another dynamic economist applying price theory to the study of a multitude of current topics in this best-selling book, and reaching some unconventional—and sometimes controversial—conclusions. An astounding read. He is the director of the Initiative on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago, and winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the best American economist, every two years, under the age of 40.

Charles Murray. Human Accomplishment. Although not an economics book per se, it is such an important work it is worthy of inclusion in the study of human behavior. Murray studied outstanding human accomplishment from 800 B.C. to 1950, and concludes we stand on the shoulders of 4,002 individuals who invented, created, or otherwise innovated all human progress in the sciences (including technology), philosophy, music, visual arts, and literature. What is astonishing about these 4,002 individuals is that the mean age at the time of their contribution was 40. This book proves that there is, indeed, such thing as a free lunch. A good companion read is Benjamin Jones, “Age and Great Invention” available at http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/Research.htm.

**TOP CHOICE Mark Skousen. Puzzles and Paradoxes in Economics; The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers; The Power of Economic Thinking; and Vienna and Chicago: Friends or Foes? Skousen is one of Baker’s favorite writers, and does an excellent job with the history of economics ideas, especially from an Austrian perspective. Each of these four books is an excellent read, the second one an engaging and engrossing survey of the leading economics thinkers, providing not only a summary of their work, but also their private and personal lives, while the last is an examination of the differences––and commonalities––between the Chicago and Austrian schools of economics.

Adam Smith. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759); and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). These are Smith’s major books, which are the basis for the classical economics view of markets. Smith is wrongly attributed with saying—or making the case that—greed is good; he never said or implied any such thing. He believed in a system of natural liberty, operating under the guidance of an “invisible hand.” For an excellent summary of Smith’s thinking, in the genre of an academic novel, see Saving Adam Smith, by Jonathan B. Wight, a well-written, innovative work of economics history. The Liberty Fund has an excellent electronic library of each of Smith’s works, which you can search by topic, keyword, phrases, and so forth, at http://www.econlib.org.

Thomas Sowell. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One; and Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy (revised and expanded edition). Thomas Sowell is one of the nation’s leading economics writers and scholastic thinkers, and is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. What is extraordinary about these works is that Sowell explains economics without using any graphs, equations, or charts, and makes the complex quite understandable. He has written many books, all of which are worth reading. Learn more about Thomas Sowell at http://www.tsowell.com.

Richard H. Thaler. The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life. This book explains the famous winner’s curse (relevant to requests for proposals and other bidding situations). Thaler is one of the pioneers of a new area of research known as “behavioral finance” and offers many interesting examples and theories of human behavior, some of which challenge the economist’s assumption of rationality.

Knowledge Workers

Thomas H. Davenport.  Thinking for a Living:  How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers.  We are going to need more books like this, and more thinkers like Davenport, if we are going to keep Peter Drucker’s legacy alive of increasing the effectiveness of knowledge workers.  The fact that there are so many disagreements over the definition of a knowledge worker, their optimal working environment, how to manage them, among other points of contention, vivifies how much work is left to be done.

Richard Florida. The Rise of the Creative Class:  And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life; and The Flight of the Creative Class:  The New Global Competition for Talent.  Florida is another thinker contributing to the knowledge worker topic, though he labels it the creative class.  While Baker has serious doubts about some of his proposals with respect to government “investing” in furthering creativity, his books are thought-provoking expositions of this important sector of the workforce, providing a global perspective on the coming competition for this type of talent.

Leadership

Gordon Bethune.  From Worst to First:  Behind the Scene’s of Continental’s Remarkable Comeback.  An excellent narrative on how one of the worst airlines was transformed into one of the best in a few years.  Bethune’s advice is common-sense leadership, with a focus on the customer, not the internal costs and finances of operating a business.  Worthwhile reading for anyone trying to change the culture of their business into one focused on the ultimate barometer of success:  creating loyal customers.

Stephen R. Covey.  The 8th Habit:  From Effectiveness to Greatness.  In this follow-up to his classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey provides a framework relevant to knowledge workers, even if a bit dense and convoluted.  Though Baker remains unconvinced by some of his arguments, such as his “5 ages of civilization”––from hunter/gatherer, agricultural, industrial, information/knowledge worker, to wisdom––which makes it sounds as if there was no wisdom prior to modern times (what about Aristotle, Adam Smith, etc.?).  That said, Covey does a wonderful job focusing on doing the right things (effectiveness) rather than doing things right (efficiency).

Ron’s Books

VeraSage founder Ron Baker, author of several books below, is in the midst of a series on “Intellectual Capitalism.” The 4-part series consists of:

1)  Pricing on Purpose (available now, see below)

2)  Measure What Matters to Customers (available now, see below) Describes Key Predictive Indicators and why leading indicators are necessary rather than lagging performance measures to drive customer service excellence. 

3) Mind Over Matter: Why Intellectual Capital is the Chief Source of Wealth (in progress, due for release October 27, 2007). A book on why intellectual capital is the driving force of wealth creation in today’s knowledge economy.

4) The Invisible Handshake: Doing Well and Doing Good (schedule pending) A book on the ethics and morality of free markets and capitalism, based on Adam Smith’s metaphor of the “Invisible Hand.”

Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value

The book presents the theory of value—long established in economics—and details how any business can use various pricing strategies to create, communicate, and capture the value of their products and services. It takes a new approach of focusing on the external value as perceived by the customer and advocates matching price to value. Written in everyday language so it’s valuable to beginning executives as well as professional pricers and marketers, it covers:

• What and how people buy
• The fallacy of commodity thinking
• The five Cs of value
• The market share myth
• The difference between cost-plus pricing and value pricing
• A comparison of the Subjective Theory of Value and the Labor Theory of Value
• Customer segmentation strategies

External book reviews:
Amazon

Buy it now from Wiley

Visit our partner Wiley to save 15% on Ron’s books and more! Your discount will be applied automatically upon checkout. If you do you not see the discount being applied, please enter code aff15 in the Promotion Code field and click the Apply Discount button.

Measure What Matters to Customers

Describes Key Predictive Indicators and why leading indicators are necessary rather than lagging performance measures to drive customer service excellence. 

Buy it now from Wiley

>Visit our partner Wiley to save 15% on Ron’s books and more! Your discount will be applied automatically upon checkout. If you do you not see the discount being applied, please enter code aff15 in the Promotion Code field and click the Apply Discount button.

Mind Over Matter

Mind Over Matter: Why Intellectual Capital is the Chief Source of Wealth (in progress, due for release October 27, 2007). A book on why intellectual capital is the driving force of wealth creation in today’s knowledge economy.

The Firm of the Future

Provides accountants in small and medium sized firms the tool to expand services beyond attest and compliance functions. Shows how to transition to other professional services that client’s value. Provides a pro-forma business plan for mapping a three to five year plan for the transition to a successful practice. Positions consulting as an extension to traditional services, not just an alternative. Includes many real world examples of accountants who have made a successful transition to new services, discussing the challenges and the results achieved. Focuses on quality of life issues and how to get there.

External book reviews: Amazon Smartpros Interview

Buy it now from Wiley

Visit our partner Wiley to save 15% on Ron’s books and more! Your discount will be applied automatically upon checkout. If you do you not see the discount being applied, please enter code aff15 in the Promotion Code field and click the Apply Discount button.

Professionals Guide to Value Pricing, Sixth Edition

Our guide will show you how to price your services for greater profit. Packed with all the information needed to evaluate the economics and ethics of alternative billing methods, we provide you with the information you need to analyze the variety of billing methods and select from them with respect to your individual practices and clients.

An indispensable tool to help you implement the switch from hourly billing to value pricing and perfect this method of pricing within your firm.

External book reviews Amazon Reviews (don’t buy it here, Amazon is not an authorized reseller of CCH’s product), Webcpa Review

Buy it now from CCH.

ACCA Booklets

Ron Baker is also the author of several booklets below, available for free download. This three part series is published by The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA website)

1) Burying the Billable Hour This booklet provides theories and concepts to enable practitioners to move from hourly billing to value pricing. pdf.

2) Trashing the Timesheet This booklet is a companion to Burying the Billable Hour and explains why the common practice of completing timesheets and tracking time spent in accountancy practices measures the wrong things, and is not an adequate indicator of team member (i.e. staff) effectiveness or efficiency. The booklet goes on to explain what should replace the timesheet as an adequate measure of team member effectiveness and efficiency. pdf.<

3) You are your Customer List is a companion to Trashing the Timesheet and Burying the Billable Hour and completes the trilogy. It emphasises the importance of customer selection, retention and firing to an accountancy practice’s team member’s morale, quality of life and profitability. Together with the two earlier booklets, this booklet rounds out the three most important aspects of leading a successful accounting practice—pricing, measuring what matters and customer selection/retention. pdf.