Publisher's Synopsis
While Frank Knight is widely regarded as the dominant intellectual force at the University Chicago in the 1930's, and was the American who most challenged J.M. Keynes as being the most important economist of his time, very little has been developed from the entire body of his work. This book breathes new life into the discussion of Knight by showing that uncertainty broadens the conception of economic welfare, and that a new cost analysis holds the key to unlocking the rich treasures of the Knightian corpus. Indeed, this new conception of economic welfare and cost forms an alternative analysis of imperfect competition which has generally been overlooked by the economics profession. While the book shows that Knightian uncertainty has an impact on economic policy, it also develops Knight's suggestion that the costs which emanate from uncertainty are unevenly distributed between firms. By developing such aspects of Knight's work this book illustrates the important linkage between uncertainty and welfare.
