In 1891, Thomas Edison and W. K. Laurie Dickson invented the Kinetoscope, the earliest ancestor of the modern motion picture. Competitive pressures soon induced Edison to alter the technology to project movies rather than show them to individual viewers, and the Edison Company introduced the Projectoscope in 1896. Repeated lawsuits against competitors over alleged patent infringements proved insufficient for Edison's ambitions; in 1908, the Edison Company joined with Biograph to form the Motion Picture Patents Company. This arrangement of interlocking agreements among studios, exhibitors, and Eastman Kodak (the primary supplier of film), however, only delayed the Edison Company's fate. Antitrust rulings against the Motion Picture Patents Company and superior movies out of California eventually forced the Edison Company to sell out in 1918.

Innovation, competition, and collusion … economics has always been the irreplaceable tool to study the motion picture industry.

In April 2003, the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, in collaboration with the Department of Economics and the Department of Film and Media Studies (all of Washington University in St. Louis), presented Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry. The first day of this conference was a public symposium with panels on digital technology, financing, and movie making. The second day was a scholars' conference with each of the following authors presenting research on his or her topic of expertise. This volume is the tangible product of that effort.