這本結集的文章是張五常過往所寫的英文論文結集，共收錄三十三篇文章。
作者簡介
張五常
一個書法家創立了合約理論，從而促成新制度經濟學的發展。一個攝影家重視基礎，仰慕前人，但不守常規，對光與物的看法皆與眾不同。一個散文家影響了神州大地對產權及交易費用的認識，也開闢了整個中國經濟學散文的新天地。
高佬常當年以釣技雄霸西灣河海域，曾經兩次被逐出校門，是容國團的乒乓球師傅，舒巷城的背誦詩詞對手，楊官璘的手下敗將。
史提芬是艾智仁及赫舒拉發的入室弟子，高斯學說的御用闡師，佛利民主持其婚禮的人。高斯拿諾貝爾獎前夕，他在瑞典代表高斯的講話講得一塌糊塗。但作為夏保加名譽週年講座系列的首位講者，卻又講得似模似樣。
張教授在經濟學上的興趣只限於解釋世事。他少用數學，喜歡赤手空拳，憑自己改進了的基礎價格理論，縱橫天下。
Foreword by Ronald H. Coase
自序：求學奇遇記
I. Three Lectures
1.Economic Explanation：Let Us Ride with Surging Tide
2.Deng Xiaoping’s Great Transformation
3.The Transaction Costs Paradigm
II. Contract Theory：from Sharecropping to the Firm
4.Private Property Rights and Sharecropping
5.Transaction Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice of Contractual Arrangements
6.The Structure of a Contract and the Theory of a Non-Exclusive Resource
7.The Contractual Nature of the Firm
8.Economic Organization and Transaction Costs
9.On the New Institutional Economics
III. Social Cost Theory
10.Coase, Ronald Harry
11.The Fable of the Bees：An Economic Investigation
12.The Theory of Inter-Individual Effects and the Demand for Contracts
13.The Myth of Social Cost
IV. Intricate Pricing Arrangements
14.The Enforcement of Property Rights in Children, and the Marriage Contract
15.Rsoe Bowl vs. Hong Kong：The Economics of Seat Pricing
16.Commodity Futures：On the Distinction between Commodity Exchange and Crude Oil Ecchange
V. Price and Rent Controls
17.A Theory of Price Control
18.Roofs or Stars：The Stated Intents and Actual Effects of a Rents Ordinance
19.Rent Control and Housing Reconstruction：The Postwar Experience of Prewar Premises in Hong Kong
VI. Intellectual Property Rights
20.Property Rights and Invention
VI.China’s Economic Reforms
21.Irving Fisher and the Red Guards
22.Will China Go Capitalist?
23.China in Transition：Where Is She Heading Now?
24.Privatization vs. Special Interests：The Experience of China’s Economic Reforms
25.Economic Interactions：China vis-a-vis Hong Kong
VII. Political Economics
26.Why Is There a Lack of Freedom Under Communism?
27.A Simplistic General Equilibrium Theory of Corruption
28.The Curse of Democracy as an Instrument of Reform in Collapsed Communist Economies
29.Common Property Rights
VIII. Newspaper Commentaries
30.China’s Ten Black Marks
31.From China Maids to Rents-a-Slave
32.Learn From China Experience
33.On the Wrong Wave Length
Index
