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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Maxim Sytch, "The Influence Economy: Decoding Supplier-Induced Demand" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Description: In The Influence Economy: Decoding Supplier-Induced Demand (Oxford UP, 2025), Maxim Sytch reveals how professional services--consulting, marketing, banking, and legal firms--create demand for unnecessary and potentially harmful products and services. Such supplier-induced demand can take many forms, including superfluous reorganizations, frivolous lawsuits, and ill-conceived acquisitions. These actions may not only fail to produce positive outcomes but can also inflict detrimental consequences on the buying organization, from squandering valuable resources and demotivating the workforce to disrupting business operations and causing various operational, legal, and financial setbacks.
Through empirical analyses and interviews with buyers and sellers of professional services, Sytch revea...