The 2008-9 financial crisis demands we look anew at the role of corporations and the working of financial markets around the world. In this major new book, one of our most eminent economists provides a compelling new analysis of the firm; the role of shareholders, managers and workers; and institutional governance structures.

Masahiko Aoki is the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies in the Economics Department, and Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. He is also the Director of the Virtual Center for Advanced Studies in Institution (VCASI) at Tokyo Foundation. Aoki is currently the President of the International Economic Association (2008-2011).

Aoki graduated from the University of Tokyo with a BA and an MA in economics and earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1967. He was formerly an assistant professor at Stanford University and Harvard University and served as both an associate and full professor at the University of Kyoto before re-joining the Stanford faculty in 1984.

• 1: Introduction: What Do Corporations Do?


• 2: Frames of Corporate Cognition and Governance


• 3: Societal Games that Corporations Play


• 4: How do Institutions Evolve?


• 5: The Evolving Diversity of the Corporate Landscape: "Convergence to Diversity"?