Information Markets: What Business Can Learn from Financial Innovation.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Book Shelf

Information Markets: What Business Can Learn from Financial Innovation. By William J. Wilhelm Jr. and Joseph D. Downing. Harvard Business School Press, 219 pages. $29.95.

What authors William Wilhelm and Joseph Downing aim to do in this interesting book is present the commercial/investment banking arena as a microcosm of how the information revolution has changed traditional businesses.

In one provocative chapter, "The Death of the Banker?", they ask aloud if information technology has effectively eliminated the way that banks historically used proprietary information to structure loans and other financings. "In essence," they write, "technology is promoting competition...