Creation ofthe Journal of Industrial Economics
As a response to the wave of interest in empirical studies of industries described earlier, the first issue of the Journal of Industrial Economics in 1952 represented the confirmation of industrial economics as a stand-alone discipline.
The aim of the Journal was to drive the new discipline forward, not only based upon industrial facts, but also supported by general theoretical assertions:Then in 1952 he [Andrews] founded the Journal of Industrial Economics. Did not mean just the old economics of industries. The new term for a new subject was not established then as it is now...searching about whether we could use the term and not be misunderstood. It is very definitely not just an “applied” subject. The heart of it is the study of the individual business unit and the decisionmaking process—investment, pricing, etc.—and also of course the relationships between businesses, which brings in the study of industrial structure, restrictive practices and environment generally (talk given by E. Brunner to Frank Friday Group (c.1961), Andrews and Brunner Archive, LSE, Box 529: 1—2).
The first issues of the Journal were largely concerned with industrial matters, often supported by case studies. For instance, the first article of the first issue, which was written by Edward Mason, mainly focused on the specific case of the raw products industry in the United States (Mason 1952). In the same issue, Fred Stones wrote about “Price Policy in a Nationally Administered Industry” (Stones 1952) while Robert Shone considered “Steel Price Policy” (Shone 1952). The making of business decisions—particularly those studied by Frank Friday in the first issue with his paper on “The Problem of Business Forecasting” (Friday 1952)—was also a central issue for the Journal.
4.2