The commentaries contained in this volume are being published for the first time. Most began as lectures I have been privileged to give during the last five years at Uppsala and Lund Universities in Sweden, at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Prague, and at the University of Chicago during a brief stay as guest of that university's Center for the Study of Economy and State. Although the present commentaries differ from the lectures that gave them birth, many key points remain.

The main objective in publishing this set of essays and studies is to set several ideas about the economics of the firm before readers. While I long ago learned that seldom is an idea completely new, I believe that plausible claims of originality can be made for several of the ideas set forth in this volume. The commentaries make no pretense at extensively surveying the topics discussed, but, to set these ideas before readers in proper context, it often is useful to discuss critically selected works that already form part of the growing literature of the firm. The works to which I refer appeared over a long time span, beginning with F. H. Knight's Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, published more than seven decades ago, and ending with contemporary work on profit measurement and tournament theories of management compensation. I hope that readers find both the critical and the constructive parts of this volume useful to their own thinking and work, and that it can serve as supplementary reading material for courses that focus on the firm. The audiences for the original lectures were heavily weighted with graduate students and with faculty from economics departments and business schools.