First off I really enjoy your economic writing. While I still enjoy reading analysis that discusses broadly "how should we regulate financial activity" or things along those lines, I find there is very little written for a lay audience about what exactly it is these companies do. For example there was a really good piece in NY mag about McKinsey's shady activity with Perdue Pharma, but it didn't quite explain the actual workings of that relationship.
I'd be interested to know your opinion about private equity and business consultants. If McKinsey, BCG, and Bane are so good at analyzing markets for private equity, why don't they just do private equity themselves? The answer I seem to get is that they do do some of it, but if you were really confident in your ability, why sell any of this knowledge out of house?
Is there a reason companies *don't* do stuff like this on their own? For some of them maybe they don't do it often enough but it seems like if the work lasts years you could hire some people for three or five years in house to do it.
First off I really enjoy your economic writing. While I still enjoy reading analysis that discusses broadly "how should we regulate financial activity" or things along those lines, I find there is very little written for a lay audience about what exactly it is these companies do. For example there was a really good piece in NY mag about McKinsey's shady activity with Perdue Pharma, but it didn't quite explain the actual workings of that relationship.
I'd be interested to know your opinion about private equity and business consultants. If McKinsey, BCG, and Bane are so good at analyzing markets for private equity, why don't they just do private equity themselves? The answer I seem to get is that they do do some of it, but if you were really confident in your ability, why sell any of this knowledge out of house?
Is there a reason companies *don't* do stuff like this on their own? For some of them maybe they don't do it often enough but it seems like if the work lasts years you could hire some people for three or five years in house to do it.