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How a milkshake-mixer salesman devised a business model that turned a burger restaurant into a global giant.

There are more than 36,000 McDonald's restaurants around the world - but if the McDonald brothers had had their way, that might never have happened. Tim Harford tells the story of how milkshake-mixer salesman Ray Kroc turned their burger business into a global giant, and explains the principles that made his franchising model such a success.

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10 minutes

Last on

Mon 13 Jan 2020 04:50GMT

Image credit

The milk shake blender at the first McDonald's restaurant opened by founder Ray Kroc, now a museum run by the restaurant chain in Des Plaines, IL (Credit:聽Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis/Getty Images)

Sources

Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonalds. 1987. Ray Kroc with Robert Anderson. Contemporary Books. Ch 1.聽McDonalds: Behind the Arches. 1987. John F Love. Transworld. P 23 & P 176.

McDonalds: Behind the Arches. 1987. John F Love. Transworld. P 3, P 16-19, P 22-26, P 53 & P 144-149.

The Economics of Franchising. 2005. Roger D. Blair, Francine Lafontaine. Cambridge University Press.

McDonald's Wikipedia聽Page聽

Ownership, Agency, and Wages: An Examination of Franchising in the Fast Food Industry. Alan B Kreuger. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106(1):75-101. February 1991.

Double-Sided Moral Hazard and the Nature of Share Contracts. Sugato Bhattacharyya and Francine Lafontaine. The RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 761-781.

Broadcasts

  • Sat 11 Jan 2020 05:50GMT
  • Sat 11 Jan 2020 14:50GMT
  • Sun 12 Jan 2020 14:50GMT
  • Sun 12 Jan 2020 15:50GMT
  • Sun 12 Jan 2020 22:50GMT
  • Mon 13 Jan 2020 04:50GMT

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