The lack of incentives or competitive pressures may lead monopolistic firms to neglect minimizing unit costs of production, i.e., to tolerate "X-inefficiency" (phrase coined by H. Leibenstein). Included in X- inefficiency are wasteful expenditures such as maintenance of excess capacity, luxurious executive benefits, political lobbying seeking protection and favourable regulations, and litigation" (Khemani and Shapiro, 1993). In all, monopoly is the economic state in which a single company produces a

Smith believed this would lead to inefficiency. However, unlike Plato, Smith did not believe that the ideal republic should decide from birth what occupation an individual should follow, rather that the individual must freely choose by his or her own will, how to direct his or her energies and labor in the most efficient and self-interested fashion, which would ultimately result in the advancement of the nation as a whole.

It offers a good theory as it emphasizes on the production and export of those items for which a country possesses a comparative advantage. Furthermore, through its focus on the reduction of taxes and tariffs in international trade and the adherent practices, the theory of comparative costs has set the basis for the contemporaneous processes of market liberalization and globalization. But the theory has not been spared from criticism. Oumar

Therefore, a country which is able to produce one good with a lower opportunity cost than another country, should specialize in producing that good which will turn into a competitive advantage. However, when assessing this theory at the level of international trade, it is harder to depict the competitive advantages. The model may seem to be unrealistic. The resources employed in real world are not restrained to labor and the

The reference to Montesquieu (as well as to Smith) in that part of the 'Dissertation' which deals with the 'Progress of Philosophy during the Seventeenth Century' was made just as a digression, and the further development of Jurisprudence by writers on Political Economy as well as 'the mighty influence which his [Montesquieu's] writings have had on the subsequent history of Scottish literature' (Stewart, 1854) were to be explained in the

Invention of Gun Powder and the Impact it Had on the Chinese Society and Warfare The invention of gunpowder was driven by the quest for unending life. Gunpowder, however, ended up being more or less a death potion, responsible for the development of the deadliest war weapon, after the atomic bomb. An invention dating back to the Song and Tang Dynasties, between the 9th and 11th centuries, gunpowder came to be