Bookshelf

Alumni and faculty members who would like to have their books considered for this listing should contact Stacey Himmelberger, editor of Hamilton magazine. This list, which dates back to 2018, is updated periodically with books appearing alphabetically on the date of entry.

Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice, 6th ed. by Elizabeth J. Jensen, professor of economics emerita (co-editor).

November 13, 2025

Tags Faculty Book

(Routledge, 2025).

Along with co-editors Don Waldman of Colgate University and Qi Ge ’06, Jensen’s former student and now an associate professor of economics at Vassar College, this latest edition of the book first published in 1998 is described by the publisher as blending “a rigorous theoretical introduction to industrial organization with empirical evidence, real-world applications, and case studies.” This, along with the range of theoretical and applied problems and exercises it provides, makes it “one of the leading undergraduate texts on industrial organization,” according to the description.

Major updates include: additional theoretical concepts (with applications) addressing current trends in business practices, such as platform markets, algorithmic pricing, monopsony, killer acquisitions, subcontracting, subscription plans, influencer marketing, and network effects; recent developments in public policy toward Big Tech and dominant platforms, labor market concentration, algorithmic collusion, and net neutrality; greater emphasis on global perspective with a broader range of international examples, applications, and cases; enhanced coverage of empirical approaches in industrial organization, including an introduction to discrete choice models and difference-in-differences methods; and a supplementary digital resource package, offering additional learning and teaching materials.

Reviewer Wei Zhang (Northern Illinois University) said, “I have been using Waldman and Jensen for my undergraduate IO course since the 3rd edition. It is by far the best on the market, combining a healthy mix of rigorous IO theory with real-life applications and case studies.”