EconAir

EconAir is an economics and political blog containing about 200 essays and posts written mostly by Bennett Greenberg, a retired professor of economics with experience teaching across the full undergraduate economics curriculum as well as related disciplines such as economic history, business strategy, finance, and political economy. Experience includes economist and corporate planning manager for three S&P 500 companies, consultant to small businesses, brokering a large acquisition, managing director of a small company, and board member of five nonprofits. Since retirement, also interested in political and economic lessons from history. The central theme of this blog is that innovation and information are the driving forces of economic development, economic growth, competition, and market structure. Modern capitalism is best understood as a dynamic process, not a static system of markets tending toward some hypothetical equilibrium. The Industrial and Digital Rev...

The Mughal emperor Shah Alam hands a scroll to Robert Clive, the governor of Bengal, which transferred tax collecting rights in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company.  Illustration: Benjamin West (1738–1820)/British Library INTRODUCTION   Founded in 1600, the English East India Company (EIC), like its Dutch equivalent the United Netherlands East India Company (VOC, from the Dutch initials) was an innovative new type of corporation. It was a model for the limited-liability, stockholder-owned and funded modern corporation. The EIC and the VOC were early prototypes for the modern multinational corporation. Originally created as a company to develop profitable long-distance trade, the EIC evolved into a political organization that controlled or dominated about two-thirds of the Indian subcontinent by the early 1800s. The EIC and the Navigation Acts were the starting points for England's naval dominance and colonial empire. The large increase in England's income and we...