The construction industry is a microcosm of the economy as a whole, and as such the economics of the sector contains many of the aspects of the economy in general, albeit with fascinating and unique features. What are the implications of economic theory for the future of UK construction? How does the industry ensure innovation, quality and efficiency? What priorities might best serve the construction industry, those working in it and their customers? In seeking answers to these and other questions, the UK government has commissioned a number of reports on the construction industry including the Latham and Egan reports and more recently Construction 2025. These have invariably proposed time and cost targets for the construction industry. In this new book, Stephen Gruneberg stands in stark contrast to those reports and presents the relevant theoretical aspects of construction economics to account for the behaviour of construction firms and suggest a strategy for future growth and sustainability. He discusses the theory and data relating to the output of firms in relation to the type of firm, the market and how these firms behave as a result. The purpose of this book is to advocate the measures needed to create the kind of industry that must be fostered to ensure the quality of its output, sustainability and the fair terms and conditions of employment for its workforce. Gruneberg's new book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the economic forces that determine industry outcomes and who has a stake in the success of the UK construction sector.

Originally published in 1985, New Nationalisms in the Developed West is a collection of interdisciplinary and insightful essays on modern nationalist movements. The book argues that these movements have challenged the power of Western nation-states not from without, but from within their frontiers. The book's focus remains predominately on Western societies and the nationalist movements of nations against states. The essays in this book are detailed and innovative and analyse nationalism through theory, methodology and empirical evidence. The book's use of research methods deepens the comparative explanation of nationalist movements, and advances understanding of Western nationalisms as social movements and examples of social change in the developed world. This book will appeal to social scientists, in political science and sociology.

This book emphasizes the importance of production politics, or struggles in the workplace between workers and their employers, for understanding migrant labour regimes in Asia and the Gulf. Drawing from a study of Bangladeshi construction workers in Singapore, as well as on comparative material in the region, Bal shows that migrant labour politics are significantly influenced by the specific form of production politics as well as their variable outcomes. In contrast to contentious politics approaches, this book sheds light on the extent to which migrant labour regimes can be contested by workers and civil society groups and explains the recent rise in migrant labour unrest in the region.

The near-ubiquitous spread of ICT offers unprecedented opportunities for social and economic agents, reshapes social and economic structures and drives the emergence of socioeconomic networks. This book contributes to the growing body of literature and present state of knowledge, offering the reader broad evidence on how new information and communication technologies impact women's economic and social empowerment and hence have an impact on overall welfare creation. More specifically, it concentrates on demonstrating how ICT may become "empowering technologies" through their implementation. The book is designed to provide deep insight into the theoretical and empirical evidence on ICT as a significant driver of women`s social and economic development. Special focus is given to examining the following broad topics: channels of ICT impact on women's development; the role of ICT in enhancing women's active participation in formal labor markets; examples of how ICT encourages education, skills development, institutions development et alia, and thus contributes to women's social and economic empowerment, as well as case-based evidence on ICT's role in fostering women's equality. The primary audience for the book will be scholars and academic professionals from a wide variety of disciplines but mainly those who are concerned with addressing the issues of economic development and growth, social development, the role of technology progress in the context of broadly defined socioeconomic progress. Chapters 1 and 3 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. They have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The author asks how far the extension of employer-supported childcare serves as a driver for higher maternal labor supply. She addresses this question by categorizing employer-supported childcare as an efficiency wage introduced by the employer to increase the working volume of mothers. Applying various impact evaluation techniques in an econometric analysis, the author concludes that the availability of employer-supported childcare has a positive impact on the length and working volume of mothers who return back to work after giving birth. Furthermore, the usage of employer-supported childcare by mothers with pre-school age children influences the amount of agreed and actual working hours positively.

What types of jobs are growing: well-paid managerial jobs or low-paid auxiliary jobs, high-end professional jobs or bottom-end service jobs? Can occupational change transform affluent countries into enlarged middle-class societies? Or, on the contrary, are we heading towards a future of increasingly divided class societies? Do changes in the employment structure allow forthcoming generations to move towards more rewarding jobs than those held by their parents - or is downward mobility the more likely outcome? This book throws new light on these timely questions by drawing on extensive evidence of employment data on the pattern of occupational change in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland since 1990. It documents the change in the employment structure, and examines the five underlying driving forces: technology, globalization, education, migration, and institutions. The book discusses whether governments really have no other choice than either occupational upgrading with soaring unemployment or full employment with expanding low-end jobs. The book gives a clear picture of the future of work, skills, and employment in today's Europe, contributing to the debate in economic sociology and labour economics.

Technological progress and globalization have generated indisputable benefits, but also relevant costs, such as growing economic inequality, economic fluctuations, and financial instability. Mainstream economics has usually considered these costs as temporary, evenly distributed, and more than compensated by the gains of the phases of economic expansion. In this book, which focuses mainly (though not only) on the labor market, the authors contend that the major costs of the intensified process of creative destruction, through which economic change proceeded, have been ignored and the benefits overrated, thus incorrectly estimating the net impact of economic growth on subjective wellbeing. The book argues that the positive consequences of economic change and globalization may not compensate for the negatives, because psychological losses are felt more strongly than gains (due to loss aversion) and the costs are unequally distributed (those on low incomes disproportionately suffer more). The result is an overall reduction in wellbeing and therefore appropriate policies are necessary to allow more people to enjoy the benefits of technological progress without suffering the costs. The authors develop a comprehensive framework in which the socio-psychological context and educational level of a community determine the most suitable policies both for the short and for the long run. The book makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on economic growth and development, labor economics, the economics of wellbeing, and applications of behavioral economics. The readers that may be interested in this book are economists and other social scientists, but also general readers, since the analysis is maintained simple and accessible. University teachers can use the book for courses on economic growth and development, on labor economics, on the economics of human capital, on the economics of wellbeing, and on applications of behavioral economics.

As the first and largest guestworker program, the U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program (1942-1964) codified the unequal relations of labor migration between the two nations. This book interrogates the articulations of race and class in the making of the Bracero Program by introducing new syntheses of sociological theories and methods to center the experiences and recollections of former Braceros and their families.

The book examines the effect of labour markets on economic performance in an international perspective; Europe, Japan and the US. Labour markets are an important determinant of the performance of both national economies and individual firms, as well as employment rewards such as wages and satisfaction levels. Many countries in Europe suffer from a high level of unemployment. The US economy suffers from low real income growth and widening wage dispersions. The level of worker satisfaction in Japan is relatively low despite her relatively better economic performance. The purpose of this book is to investigate these issues, and to provide readers with explanations of these phenomena and the differences in the performance of labour markets in Europe, Japan and the US. The book includes both theoretical and empirical studies of various countries undertaken by leading labour and macro economists, and presents several policy suggestions.

First published in book form in 1981, this collection of essays originally written between 1955 and 1966 contains ground-breaking research and analysis on the study of wages and prices across seven centuries, with particular reference to builder's wage rates and the price of a bundle of the commodities on which these wages might be spent. These seminal contributions to the economics of labour and economic growth did much to fuel the debate surrounding the problems of inflation, stability and changes in the purchasing power of money upon the book's initial publication. These concerns are every bit as relevant in today's post credit-crunch society and this reissue will be welcomed by all students of economic history and labour economics.

The emergence of industrial policy as a central issue among not just policy makers but the intellectual community as well reflects not only concerns about the international competitiveness of firms and nations but also unemployment and growth. Scholarship on industrial policy has been scattered across a wide range of disciplines and subjects, rendering it difficult to grasp the state of knowledge on the subject. The purpose of this three volume series is to provide the classic articles forming the building blocks of scholarship on industrial policy and present them in an integrated framework. These classic contributions span a number of subjects within economics, such as international trade, industrial economics, labour economics, economic development and technological change, as well as a number of different academic disciplines, including political science, sociology, international relations, and international management. The first volume focuses on The Mandate for Industrial Policy, the second on Instruments and Targets, and the third on Industry and Country Studies.

This book combines demand-led growth models and the institutionalist approach, in order to explain the macroeconomic performance of the main European countries in recent years followed by which a coherent explanation of the institutional change since the Great Recession, including the economic policy response to the economic and financial crisis (2008) and to the debt crisis (2010) is provided. A "Comparative Political Economy" (CPE) analytical framework and provide an institutional base to the different European growth models is built, in general terms over the period 1995-2018. The results allow us to link diverse growth dynamics to the changes of the institutional framework as a consequence of the economic and financial crises. In each chapter for country case studies (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden, UK and Poland) there;'s an ntroduction with a general characterization of the country and the most relevant changes that have occurred subsequently (main legislative milestones or changes in the behaviour of social agents) especially the process of dualization or deregulation of European economies. In addition, an analysis of the macroeconomic evolution and the situation of the labour market before and after the crisis from a demand-side perspective is included, concluding with the linkages between both issues and the characterization of the growth model. This book is of special interest to all the students and university professors who will use this book to be able to follow a multitude of subjects from Applied Economy to International Economic Structure but can also be useful for researchers, doctoral students and teaching staff who want to expand knowledge in the fields of comparative political economy, institutions and the European Union. In general, this book is aimed at anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of the evolution of Europe today.

The economic crisis has brought about a watershed in institutional, political, and social relations, reshaping the labour market and the class structure in southern Europe. This book provides a critical comparative assessment of the dynamics of change in the employment field, focusing on Spain, Greece, and Cyprus. The book assesses how the liberalization and deregulation processes and the promotion of market-enhancing reforms progressed in three different national settings, identifying the forces, agents, contexts, and mechanisms shaping the employment and industrial relations systems. The comparative perspective used deciphers the interplay of external and internal dynamics in the restructuring of the labour field in Southern Europe, examining austerity and its contestation in connection with prevailing societal ideologies and class shifts. The first part of the book sets the theoretical and historical context, the second is comprised of three empirical national case studies, and the third discusses comparatively the handling of the crisis, its impact, and its legacy from the standpoint of a decade later. The book presents differences in industrial relations systems, trade union forms, and class composition dynamics, accounting for the development of the crisis and the reshaping of the employment field after one decade of crisis. It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals, and students working on issues of employment and industrial relations, labour market and labour law, political economy and class structure, as well as those interested in the contemporary society and economy of southern Europe in general, and Spain, Greece, and Cyprus in particular.

The financial crisis in advanced economies and its impact on developing countries has put the longer term agenda of development - structural transformation of countries, of their growth, jobs, poverty and distribution - on the analytic and policy backburner. Day to day management of macro fundamentals in the global economy and the labour market have consumed decision makers with faltering GDP growth, soaring unemployment, and a resurgent threat of deflation. Without understanding and addressing the structural constraints and imbalances underpinning such global problems, the world economy is doomed to experience an increasing number of crises and emerging dualisms between countries. The aim of this book is to bring back a balance to the development debate by re-focusing on the structural development challenges faced by developing countries. The book develops a coherent analytical framework supported by a large body of new empirical evidence linking three core dimensions - the structure of growth, employment, and their macro drivers. Then, for each of these dimensions and relationships a variety of effective policies are also identified and elucidated with the added granularity of country cases.

This book presents a probabilistic approach to studying the fundamental role of labor in capitalist economies and develops a non-deterministic theoretical framework for the foundations of political economy. By applying the framework to real-world data, the authors offer new insights into the dynamics of growth, wages, and accumulation in capitalist development around the globe. The book demonstrates that a probabilistic political economy based on labor inputs enables us to describe central organizing principles in modern capitalism. Starting from a few basic assumptions, it shows that the working time of employees is the main regulating variable for determining strict numerical limits on the rate of economic growth, the range of wages, and the pace of accumulation under the present global economic system. This book will appeal to anyone interested in how the capitalist mode of production works and its inherent limitations; in particular, it will be useful to scholars and students of Marxian economics. "Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshe Machover, follow up their pathbreaking work on the application of statistical physics methods to political economy in this book with David Zachariah, in which they develop methods for making educated and structured estimates of stylized facts applicable to capitalist economies. There's a lot for economists and anyone interested in the political economy of capitalism to learn from their reasoning on these issues, including their novel and challenging suggestion of bounds on the rates of increase of use-value productivity of labor, and on the range of variation of the wage share." Duncan K. Foley, Leo Model Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research

Although it does not seem unusual to us that professionals be compensated for the product or service they provide, there are some professions that make us feel uncomfortable with the necessity of payment. "Paying the Doctor" explores this dilemma as it relates to the health care field. It analyzes and explains the roles of the health care provider, patient, and market influences in cost and reimbursement. Part introductions to each section familiarize the reader with the specific concerns it contains, and an overall conclusion describes the major points of a planned future payment system.

The goal of this volume was to create a book that was general enough to serve as an introduction for members of the health care field and sophisticated enough to appeal also to researchers. To achieve this, editor Jonathan Moreno enlists the aid of a diverse group of professionals: health care providers, economists, historians, philosophers, and others. They begin by providing a series of studies that describe and apply various frameworks for analyzing physician payment, the first of which shows exactly what an enormous challenge the entire subject of reimbursement poses. The following section studies various payment mechanisms. Successive sections study specific professional groups and the Medicare system. Based on this information, a new payment system expected to be introduced within a few years is discussed.

This is an academic inquiry into how labor power has been dehumanized and commodified around the world through the ages for capital accumulation and industrialization, and colonial and post-colonial economic transformation. The study explores all major episodes of slaveries beginning from the ancient civilizations to the end of Transatlantic Slave Trade in the eighteenth century; the worlds of serfdoms in the context of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia; the worlds of feudalisms in the context of Latin America, Japan, China, and India; the worlds of indentured servitudes in the context of the Europeans, the Indians, and the Chinese; the worlds of guestworkers in the contexts of the United States and Western Europe; the worlds of migrant labor programs in the context of the Gulf States; and the contemporary world of neoslavery focusing on human trafficking in both developing and developed countries, and forced labor in global value chains. The book is designed not only for students and academia in labor economics, labor history, and global socio-economic and political transformations, but also for the intelligent and inquiring policy makers, reformers, and general readers across the disciplinary pursuits of Economics, Political Science, History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Law.

Much is talked and written about well-being in the workplace, but many wonder whether 'putting people first' is just a facade and that were it not for employment legislation, union representation and the high profile of human rights issues, employers would regard employees as a necessary burdensome financial evil, as in days gone by. Some scholarly research has focused on the reactions of employees to the quality of working life and well-being at work and much of this suggests high levels of dissatisfaction, disaffection and disengagement. In Workers' Voice, HRM Practice, and Leadership in the Public Sector: Multidimensional Well-Being at Work, Nicole Cvenkel avers that whilst it is known that public sector employees are even less satisfied than those in the private sector, there has been very little research into the effects of working life experiences on employee well-being in public sector organisations. There is even some doubt about whether a well-being philosophy that can be applied in the private sector can readily be extended to the public sector. The push towards New Public Management (NPM) means organisations continue to undergo significant reform processes around efficiency, costs and public service delivery. All these changes place additional demands on public sector employees who are at times also subject to intensive scrutiny by stakeholder groups, who may regard the recourse to well-being initiatives as a poor use of public funds. The author has researched in the UK local government sector and that is the setting for the debate in this book, about whether and how an employee well-being ideology can be successfully promoted and maintained in an NPM environment, given continuous reform and expenditure reduction. In a local government case organisation, the author has researched, limited resources, reduction in budgets, redundancies, increased workloads, lack of trust, and the existence of a 'controlled' working environment were all found to be central to a climate of bullying and unfairness. Although the organisation was committed to the adoption of HRM 'best practice' and initiatives geared towards promoting employees well-being, employees still believed they were being bullied and treated unfairly. It was found that different perspectives on the psychological contract, fairness, and bullying at work were highlighted by managerial and non-managerial employees. The author's conclusions contribute to a clearer understanding than hitherto of workers' voice in relation to work, leader-member exchanges, and well-being in the public sector and she offers a model depicting employees' understanding of what their quality of working life, line manager's leadership and well-being should be, that might be used by organisational leaders, researchers, policy makers, Human Resources managers and other practitioners and consultants, to move towards a more holistic, multidimensional, well-being at work paradigm.

This provocative book considers the changing status of older workers, the evolution of public policy on age and work and the behaviour of employers. It attempts to answer the critical question: in an ageing society, can older workers look forward to the prospect of longer working lives with choice and security and make successful transitions to retirement? Ageing Labour Forces challenges the current stance of many governments and observers concerning policies to extend working lives. It utilises perspectives and case studies from public policy, employment policy and the attitudes and behaviour of older people. Philip Taylor argues that older workers have been at the forefront of industrialized society's efforts to respond to the crisis facing social welfare systems and the economic threats associated with population ageing. Their involvement has forced the restructuring of economies, adjustments to social welfare systems as well as redefinitions to the actual concept of old age. Containing contributions from leading researchers in a number of countries, this work will appeal to academics and researchers interested in work, ageing and public policy as well as labour economics.

The Oxford Handbook of Managerial Economics, the first of its kind, aims to provide researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and teachers with summaries of the state of the art in the field of managerial economics. Edited by the coauthors of two managerial economics textbooks, comprising 25 chapters contributed by leading scholars and business consultants from around the globe, and drawing on the literature of, among others, economics, finance, industrial organization, marketing, behavioral psychology, game theory and auction theory, the Handbook summarizes cutting-edge approaches to the analysis of the decision-making challenges faced by the managers of for-profit and nonprofit enterprises. The problems addressed run the gamut from cost estimation, product development and promotion, optimal pricing strategies for network industries and make-or-buy decisions, to organizational design, performance pay, corporate governance, strategies for multinational corporations and the social responsibilities of business. Each of the managerial economics experts commissioned for the volume also identify the problems that are yet to be solved and thus point the way toward topics for future research. Managerial economics has moved far beyond simply applying neoclassical microeconomic theory to the actual world of practical business decision-making. By illustrating how disciplines other than economics can fruitfully be brought to bear in helping to analyze and to understand the incentives and constraints under which business managers operate, the Handbook fills in the gaps between theory and practice. Sometimes technical, but always reader-friendly, no one with an interest in the modern world of business or public policies toward it can afford to ignore the analyses and the important lessons taught by the contributors to it.

Originally published in 1976, Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England examines working-class radicalism in the mid-Victorian period and suggests that after the fading of Chartist militancy the radical tradition was preserved in a working-class subculture that enabled working men to resist the full consolidation of middle-class hegemony. The book traces the growth of working-class radicalism as it developed dialectically in confrontation with middle-class liberal ideology in the generation after Waterloo. Intellectual forces were of central importance in shaping the character of the working-class Left and the Enlightenment, in particular, as the chief source of ideological weapons that were turned against the established order. The Enlightenment also provided the intellectual foundations of the middle-class ideology that was directed against the incipient threat of popular radicalism. The book notes that the same intellectual forces that entered into the first half of the nineteenth century also shaped the value system that provided the foundations of mid-Victorian urban culture. These forces also contributed to the rapprochement between working-class liberalism, bringing latent affinities to the surface. It is also emphasised, however, that inherited ideas and traditions exercised their influence in interaction with the structure of power and status.

Artificial intelligence will not necessarily create a super-intelligent "human robot"; however, it is very probable that intelligent robots and intelligent informats will bring about a form of super-globalization, in which money and goods are prioritized over people and democracy and where the widespread use of casual labour - that is, short-term contracts - will become the most common form of employment relationship. It is also very likely that artificial intelligence will bring about what is known as singularity. This term is used to describe a situation where intelligent robots, from a rational and logical perspective, are smarter than humans, i.e. the development of AI. This book explores the impact that these intelligent robots and intelligent informats will have on social and societal development. The author tackles the question of singularity from three distinct standpoints: technological singularity - the intelligence of machines compared to that of humans - which he argues will bring about a qualitatively new labour market; economic singularity - the consequences for work relationships, value creation and employment - which he asserts will promote full automation, result in precarious contracts with low salaries, and, in some countries, possibly lead to the introduction of a universal basic income; and social singularity - the consequences of technological and economic singularity for democratic processes, bureaucratic procedures for exercising authority and control, and the direction in which society will develop, in addition to the emergence of new social institutions - which Johannessen says will promote a transition from representative democracy to genuine democracy. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and students of economic sociology and political economy, as well as those focusing upon the emerging innovation economy. It will also find an audience among professionals and policymakers keen to understand the impact the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have on organizations, individuals and society at large.

This book examines how fiscal policy and management can promote gender equality in developing as well as developed countries. Providing an international look at gender budgeting, it draws on countries at different levels of development, with an emphasis on low-income developing countries. It introduces the reader to the main trends in gender equality, the key ideas and rationale of gender budgeting from a fiscal policy perspective and where gender budgeting fits into public financial management. It offers case studies and other empirical evidence from developing, emerging, and developed countries on what works in using fiscal policy and public financial management to narrow gender gaps in education, health care, access to infrastructure, and economic empowerment. It also provides policy recommendations appropriate to countries at different levels of development. The reader will gain an understanding of how fiscal policy and public financial management can contribute to gender equality and women's advancement. The book provides a well-grounded set of conclusions and policy recommendations, drawn from evaluation of the evidence. The focus is on low-income developing countries but is combined with a well-rounded look at developing countries, more generally, emerging markets, and developed countries as well. This book will be a valuable resource for economists and policy makers, particularly those in developing countries still grappling with large disparities between women and men. It will also prove useful to researchers and those who provide technical assistance and aid to countries on fiscal policies and tools for gender equality.

The emergence of new platform business models, notably the sharing economy, is impacting the economy in various ways, altering the structure of many industries, and raising a number of economic and political issues. This book investigates the widespread influence of the sharing economy on businesses and society, as well as examining its underpinning economic principles and development. This volume presents an exhaustive review of the existing knowledge on the sharing economy and addresses several major areas of concern for incumbent businesses. It also explains the business models for those who are interested in embarking on their own ventures and provides an excellent source for further research. It takes an in-depth look at controversial labour policies, such as using labour as self-employed contractors or using regulatory grey areas to expand in markets. It is highly multidisciplinary, establishing links between economics, finance, marketing and consumer behaviour. This contribution on the sharing economy will enable researchers and graduate and doctoral students to expand and improve their understanding of this topic and identify new research problems in all of these areas. The book will also appeal to policy makers, regional and local government decision makers, and those interested in labour markets transformation.

Drawing on Australian and comparative case studies, this volume reconceptualises non-metropolitan creative economies through the 'qualities of place'. This book examines the agricultural and gastronomic cultures surrounding 'native' foods, coastal sculpture festivals, universities and regional communities, wine in regional Australia and Canada, the creative systems of the Hunter Valley, musicians in 'outback' settings, Fab Labs as alternatives to clusters, cinema and the cultivation of 'authentic' landscapes, and tensions between the 'representational' and 'non-representational' in the cultural economies of the Blue Mountains. What emerges is a picture of rural and regional places as more than the 'other' of metropolitan creative cities. Place itself is shown to embody affordances, unique institutional structures and the invisible threads that 'hold communities together'. If, in the wake of the publication of Florida's Rise of the Creative Class, creative industries models tended to emphasize 'big cities' and the spatial-cum-cultural imaginaries of the 'Global North', recent research and policy discourses - especially, in the Australian context - have paid greater attention to 'small cities', rural and remote creativity. This collection will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners in creative industries, urban and regional studies, sociology, geography and cultural planning.