This book takes as a starting point that welfare states in developed societies do not provide systems of social insurance against the risk of an early death. In contrast to the way in which economically developed countries provide ways of insuring citizens against other possibilities, such as unemployment and disease, no such social insurance mechanism exists for early death. It aims to demonstrate that, despite the impossibility to compensate the victims of a short life once they are identified, and despite the impossibility to identify the persons who will be short-lived (when they are still alive), it is nonetheless possible to construct a social insurance against the risk of a short life by means of age-based statistical discrimination favouring all young persons. Combining philosophical literature with economic analysis, the book re-examines the ethical foundations of social insurance, and proposes a major reform of the welfare state: the construction of a social insurance against a short life. It shows how such an insurance system could be constructed by partially 'reversing' existing pension systems, by offering a period of retirement to all young adults before they start their career. Such a 'reversed' pension system would allocate more free time and opportunities to younger members of society before they enter the labour market, and, hence, this system would also improve the lives of the - unidentified - young persons who will turn out to die prematurely. The book discusses the social desirability of this new system, as well as its financial feasibility and societal consequences, examining how pension allowances paid to young adults may be financed by the work of senior workers. As such, this book demonstrates how the universal uncertainty about the duration of life can be reconciled with the idea of social justice. With an accessible and interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to academics working in a range of fields, including economics, public finance, social insurance, the economics of ageing and the welfare state, economic ethics and political philosophy.

Globally, there is a commitment to eliminate poverty; and yet the politics that have caused anti-poverty policies to succeed in some countries and to fail in others have been little studied. The Politics of Poverty Reduction focuses on these political processes. Analysis is based partly on global comparisons and partly on case-studies of nine countries that span the developing world. Where governments are politically weak, they need to make alliances with other groups to stay in power, and where these have been with low-income groups, the result may be a lasting and effective pro-poor strategy. Often pro-poor policies have been brought in not with progressive intentions, but out of fear that the state will fall apart unless pro-poor elements are incorporated into government, and the most effective regimes in reducing poverty have seldom been the kindest and most benevolent. The ability to provide the poor with access to key markets, and in particular labour and capital, is crucial, and this in turn requires fiscal strength. Two crucial elements in the story are the ability to frame labour-intensive policies (given that labour is often the only thing that poor people are able to sell) and the design of effective tax and expenditure policies. Aid donors can make a key contribution, partly through reinforcing recipients' fiscal capacity, but much more through providing technical support of the right kind.

People want more from the government. One thing they want more of is a sense of personal safety, at home and at work (Regulation, Fall 1991). People also want the government to quit wasting money. The objective of having the government provide a safer life for us and our children at minimum cost leads logically to looking at policy within the system involving the private sector plus governments at the federal and sub federal levels. Using numerical simulations our book takes an integrated quantitative look at how the various institutions influencing workplace safety lead to the observed levels of illnesses and injuries among U.S. workers. Our innovation is piecing together the mosaic of interactions among workers, employers, state government, and the federal government that is numerically realistic in the sense of using economists' current knowl edge of quantitative connections. Our objective has been to write a Gray's Anatomy, if you will, of how the U.S. economic system, as tempered by government policy, jointly determines employment patterns, wages, and workplace safety levels."

This book fills an important gap in the knowledge about labor market conditions in Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings, and it analyzes the results of the latest round of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey carried out in early 2012. The chapters cover topics that are essential to understanding the conditions leading to the Egyptian revolution of 25 January 2011, including the persistence of high youth unemployment, labor market segmentation and rigidity, growing informality, and the declining role of the state as an employer. It includes the first research on the impact of the revolution and the ensuing economic crisis on the labor market, including issues such as changes in earnings, increased insecurity of employment, declining female labor force participation, and the stagnation of micro and small enterprise growth. Comparisons are made to labor market conditions prior to the revolution using previous rounds of the survey fielded in 1988, 1998, and 2006. The chapters make use of this unique longitudinal data to provide a fresh analysis of the Egyptian labor market after the Arab Spring, an analysis that was simply not feasible with previously existing data. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the economics of the Middle East and the political economy of the Arab Spring.

This book is written in honor of Horst Brezinski and explores a wide and diverse range of topics related to comparative economic studies. Containing contributions from a number of former Presidents of the European Association for Comparative Economic Studies, the chapters discuss the hard budget constraint, economic transformation in Central Eastern Europe, illiberal democracy, sovereign wealth fund, higher education, the euro, the shadow economy, multinational companies, and economic power. Additional attention is given to new areas of study such as the digital economy and sports economics. This book aims to examine comparative economies across a wide range of geographical areas including China, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the United States and will be relevant to those interested in emerging and transition economies, the political economy, economic policy, and international relations.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing Great Recession of 2008 to 2013, the economic debate has begun to shift towards 'rebalancing' the UK economy, away from an over-reliance upon consumerism and the financial sector to generate growth, towards more sustainable productive activities. The fallout from the financial crisis exposed the systemic failings of the dominant neo-liberal model to deliver balanced growth and there is now increasing recognition this 'rebalancing' might best be achieved through the state pursuing an active 'industrial policy'. Thus, after a long hiatus, industrial policy is back in vogue at regional, national, and EU levels driven by concerns over competitiveness, globalisation, de-industrialisation, unemployment, and the comparatively slow growth of the British and EU economies especially in this post-recession phase. At the same time, industrial policy has been seen as a catalyst for designing economic recovery strategies at regional, national, and EU levels as well as being a concerted strategy to develop new 'clean-tech' industries to tackle environmental challenges. This book brings together leading European based experts, each with a long standing interest in industrial policy. The chapters offer a broad set of perspectives on the many facets of industrial policy, including reflections upon past experiences of industrial policy (from across the globe) and critical analysis and advice upon contemporary UK industrial policy issues. They aim to critically inform and challenge policy-makers, policy think-tanks, industrialists, trade unions, academics, and other stakeholders in framing the future course for industrial policy in the UK, and indeed more widely.

From Chinese factories making cheap toys for export, to sweatshops in Bangladesh where name-brand garments are sewn - studies on the impact of globalization on workers have tended to focus on the worst jobs and the worst conditions. But in When Good Jobs Go Bad, Jeffrey Rothstein looks at the impact of globalization on a major industry - the North American auto industry - to reveal that globalization has had a deleterious effect on even the most valued of blue-collar jobs. Rothstein argues that the consolidation of the Mexican and U.S.-Canadian auto industries, the expanding number of foreign automakers in North America, and the spread of lean production have all undermined organized labor and harmed workers. Focusing on three General Motors plants assembling SUVs - an older plant in Janesville, Wisconsin; a newer and more viable plant in Arlington, Texas; and a ""greenfield site"" (a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility) in Silao, Mexico - When Good Jobs Go Bad shows how global competition has made nonstop, monotonous, standardized routines crucial for the survival of a plant, and it explains why workers and their local unions struggle to resist. For instance, in the United States, General Motors forced workers to accept intensified labor by threatening to close plants, which led local unions to adopt ""keep the plant open"" as their main goal. At its new factory in Silao, GM had hand-picked the union - one opposed to strikes and committed to labor-management cooperation - before it hired the first worker. Rothstein's engaging comparative analysis, which incorporates the viewpoints of workers, union officials, and management, sheds new light on labor's loss of bargaining power in recent decades, and highlights the negative impact of globalization on all jobs, both good and bad, from the sweatshop to the assembly line.

This is the first study that puts together a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the drivers of the labor income share across a number of countries in Asia. This book provides an insightful companion to the study of labor income shares that plays a vital role in understanding the relationship between national income and personal income, and the relationship between wage inequality and wealth inequality. The timing of the book is ideal, as the ongoing debate over a global decline in the labor income share is far from settled. To this extent, evidence from the Asian countries is mixed. The labor income share in some Asian countries has been rising since the 1990s. The purpose of this edited volume is to gain more insights on the potential drivers of the Asian experience. The first half of the book pays attention to the measurement problems related to the earnings of self-employed and workers in the informal sector. Then it puts together country case studies examining a wide range of factors driving the labor income share in Asia.

Most countries implement social protection programs to help individuals manage risks such as unemployment, disability, illness, longevity or death. In many middle income countries, these are often based on a 'Bismarckian model' (named after Otto von Bismarck), where benefits are financed by contributions levied on salaried employment. In countries with a large informal sector, however, only a fraction of the population is covered by this system and non-contributory programs have been added or are planned to increase coverage. This can create distortions in the labor market, and the book is about policies to expand the coverage of social insurance programs to all workers, without reducing incentives to job creation and formal work. While few would argue against the need and social merits of social insurance and social assistance programs there are growing concerns about their unintended consequences on labor markets because of poor design. The programs can distort incentives and individual behaviors in ways that either reduce employment levels and/or promote informality, ultimately affecting productivity and economic performance. For instance, high social security contribution rates can reduce formal employment; badly designed unemployment benefits can reduce incentives to keep, search, and take jobs; and fragmented social assistance programs can become a tax on formal labor and encourage informality. The book reviews the evidence regarding the effects of social insurance and social assistance programs on labor market outcomes and discusses options to improve their design and implementation. The book focuses particularly on middle income countries in Latin America and Asia with a large informal sector and suggests ways to reduce these distortions and better manage and finance the subsidies to make coverage universal, while creating good jobs. The book compiles expert papers from the joint conferences of the World Bank (WB), the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on Employment and Development.

This open access book comparatively analyses intergenerational social mobility in immigrant families in Europe. It is based on qualitative in-depth research into several hundred biographies and professional trajectories of young people with an immigrant working-class background, who made it into high-prestige professions. The biographies were collected and analysed by a consortium of researchers in nine European countries from Norway to Spain. Through these analyses, the book explores the possibilities of cross-country comparisons of how trajectories are related to different institutional arrangements at the national and local level. The analysis uncovers the interaction effects between structural/institutional settings and specific individual achievements and family backgrounds, and how these individuals responsed to and navigated successfully through sector-specific pathways into high-skilled professions, such as becoming a lawyer or a teacher. By this, it also explains why these trajectories of professional success and upward mobility have been so exceptional in the second generation of working-class origins, and it tells us a lot also about exclusion mechanisms that marked the school and professional careers of children of immigrants who went to school in the 1970s to 2000s in Europe - and still do.

An interdisciplinary study of market women from all parts of Africa shows how, from historical times to the present, African women have used the economic power they have derived from market activities and commercial enterprises to improve their social and political status in a man's world. They used their wealth in pre-colonial times to obtain titles and even chieftainship. Because of their involvement in trade, many women acquired considerable property, especially real estate. The authors stress the positive aspect of women's economic activities, but also point out the prevalent sexual division of labor in Africa as a limiting factor. They illustrate the concomitant struggle between men and women over certain market items traditionally associated with one or the other sex. They analyze the cultural, social, and economic barriers that restrict female involvement in some economic activities. Nevertheless, the overwhelming conclusion by all of the writers, who are Africans and Americans, is that women play a major role in the economic sector of all the regions of the continent.

This book addresses one of the most topical and pressing areas of inequality experienced by women in the UK: inequality in the labour market. Despite the changed and changing position of women in society there remain substantial gender differences in the labour market. Bringing together the expertise of a range of authors, including renowned scholars and senior policy makers, it offers a coherent account of gender inequality in the labour market. It includes: - An extensive introduction with the wider context, the basic facts on various relevant labour market outcomes, international comparisons, and the legislative framework; - Chapters that focus on the key issues, offering analysis of the way inequality in the labour market is related to the wider macroeconomic dynamics, factors that explain the gender pay gap, the transition from education to the labour market, the dimensions of occupational segregation, and the division of labour within the household. The book is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in gender inequality and the labour market, as well as for those who would like an objective account of the main factors explaining this inequality.

This book focuses on labour dislocation and migration of Palestinians between 1967 and 1992. In particular, it highlights the social transformations in the occupied Palestinian territory where Palestinian labour was permitted to work in Israel from 1968 onwards. Elaborating on the results of the policy which saw a gradual increase in the number of Palestinian workers commuting daily from a negligible proportion of the actively participating labour force, to 35 percent of all employed persons, and 60 percent of all wage paid workers, the book studies this unique case which embodies characteristics from permanent migration situations not only in the de-jure, but also the de-facto sense; insofar as it embeds higher risks and reallocates resources as if it was a permanent relocation scenario. Illustrated with tables and econometric results, the book identifies the determinants and implications of migrant labour from the West Bank using two broad methodologies: the neoclassical and the historical-structural method. Each of these methods is divided into two branches: the classical divided into price determined and a choice-theoretic framework,and the historical-structural divided into dependency and Marxist theory. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation, all four perspectives are employed in the investigation. In doing so, what emerges is a structure for the book which takes shape along the different lines of migration literature. The book provides new insights into the making of wage labour and labour migration theory.

Here is a landmark publication in women's studies. "Hidden Aspects of Women's Work" is the culmination of years of research by the prestigious Women and Work Research Group. The book offers an unusually comprehensive discussion of women in the work force, covering both unpaid domestic work and paid labor the experiences of blue collar workers and professionals, and the ways the institutions affect them all. In addition to offering broad coverage of how women and men differ in work experience and job satisfaction, the book addresses the intersection between work and family life and the supermom syndrome, reports on sexual harassment with new findings that it is more deeply ingrained in the workplace than previously imagined, the impact technology has had on clerical jobs, and more. The contributors, representing a range of disciplines, have left no stone unturned in their search to understand the nature of women's work and how their status in the marketplace can be improved.

Henry George (1839-1897) rose to fame as a social reformer and economist amid the industrial and intellectual turbulence of the late nineteenth century. His best-selling Progress and Poverty (1879) captures the ravages of privileged monopolies and the woes of industrialization in a language of eloquent indignation. His reform agenda resonates as powerfully today as it did in the Gilded Age, and his impassioned prose and compelling thought inspired such diverse figures as Leo Tolstoy, John Dewey, Sun Yat-Sen, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein. This six-volume edition of The Annotated Works of Henry George assembles all his major works for the first time with new introductions, critical annotations, extensive bibliographical material, and comprehensive indexing to provide a wealth of resources for scholars and reformers. Volume VI of this series presents A Perplexed Philosopher (1892), Henry George's devastating critique of Herbert Spencer's changing views on the land question after he achieved fame as the author of the "Synthetic Philosophy." Social Statics (1850), Spencer's first major work, affirms an equal right of all to the use of the earth. By the early 1890s, Spencer had recanted this view in such works as Justice (1891) and an abridged version of Social Statics (1892). This betrayal of principle by Spencer provoked George to write A Perplexed Philosopher. In this volume George's original text is supplemented by critical annotations and an extensive topical bibliography. A comprehensive index covers all six volumes in the series. The introductory essay by Dr. Joseph Milne, "Social Evolution and Moral Sophistry," provides the cultural and philosophical context for George's critical analysis of Spencer's tortuous abandonment of the principle of equal freedom with respect to its application to the use of nature and the furtherance of equal opportunity for all. In A Perplexed Philosopher, George employs his considerable logical acumen to reveal Spencer's multiple inconsistencies and confusions when it comes to the land question. Spencer did not respond in a systematic fashion to George's critique. The few comments that he did make show that his understanding of the movement which George inspired was quite limited. Henry George wrote A Perplexed Philosopher in order to correct the many confusions about the land question by a major nineteenth century philosopher. In doing so he made a significant contribution to such topics as the issue of compensation, when a wrongful entitlement is taken away from a privilege-holder, and tendency of towards materialistic positivism. A Perplexed Philosopher reveals some fundamental differences between George's philosophical outlook and other prevailing views in the nineteenth century. A Perplexed Philosopher is not only a major contribution to nineteenth century scholarship with regard to the relation between humanity and nature, but it also illuminates a stark contrast between George's animating philosophy of equitable reform and Spencer's philosophy of the status quo.

This book examines the evolution of basic income policy and research in advanced economies and is divided into two parts. The first section considers the development of basic income as a social policy initiative in advanced (OECD) nations from the 1960s to today. It reviews what the negative income tax experiments accomplished, their limitations, and what they can lend to the design and implementation of basic income pilots or a full blown basic income program today. It also considers important developments and research in poverty and economic inequality and in technological change and labour market adjustment over the last half century. The second section focuses on the Canadian case, where the prospects for basic income are perhaps among the most promising. In addition to a review of Mincome and its lessons and limitations, this section considers important developments in poverty research by the Economic Council of Canada and the Canadian Senate in the 1960s, attempts at welfare reform, and the policy initiatives to develop a basic income for elderly Canadians that has endured to this day. Many of the important social and technological developments that are reviewed in the first part will be discussed in more detail with specific reference to the Canadian case. The evolution of the important policy innovations the National Child Benefit and its successors and the Poverty Reduction Strategy are outlined in detail and linked to other, more modest, income support initiatives such as the federal sales tax credit that provide a potential foundation for a comprehensive basic income plan in Canada. Research, including recent microsimulation studies of a basic income, are critically reviewed. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in basic income to support those hardest hit, the book argues for careful design of basic income policies in its aftermath rather than simplistic adoption of emergency pandemic measures.

This book investigates hard work and new and expanding jobs in Europe. The interrelationship between the labour market and welfare regimes, and quality of work and life is played out at many levels: the institutional; the organizational level of the company and its customers or clients; and the level of everyday life at the workplace and beyond it.

Across welfare societies we have seen the emergence of policies and norms for work-life balance alongside rising expectations among working parents to be able to participate in employment and caregiving, and to have more time for family life and leisure. Yet despite this value placed upon work-life balance, working parents face increasing work demands, as well as rising numbers of insecure and precarious jobs, both of which produce a deepening sense of economic uncertainty in everyday life, which has been intensified in the current period of financial crises. The agency and capabilities gap addresses these tensions in work-life balance within families, workplace organizations, and policy frameworks. Inspired by Amartya Sen's capabilities approach, this volume considers not just what individuals do, but also their scope of alternatives to make other choices. It includes rich contextualized studies across Western and Eastern European countries and Japan, with a focus on gendered agency inequalities for work-life balance.

This collection is the first to analyse the results of the Jordan Labour Market Panel Survey of 2010 (JLMPS 2010), a major household survey of labour market conditions carried out in Jordan by the Economic Research Forum. The chapters cover topics that are essential to understanding the conditions leading to the Arab Spring, including the persistence of high youth unemployment despite fairly healthy economic growth, the co-existence of in-migration, high unemployment, and out-migration, the very low and stagnant female participation rates despite rapid increases in educational attainment and delayed marriage among Jordanian women, and the unusually early retirement among prime-age male workers. The chapters make use of this unique data set to provide a fresh analysis of the Jordanian labour market that was simply not feasible with previously existing data. The book will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the Economics of the Middle East and the political economy of the Arab Spring.

This edited volume analyses how EU membership influenced the convergence process of member countries in the Baltics, Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It also explores countries that are candidates for future EU membership. The speed of convergence of significant groups of low- and medium-income countries has never been as fast globally as it is today. Contributions by lead researchers of the area explore whether these countries are converging faster than their fundamentals and global trends would suggest because of EU membership, with its much tighter institutional and political anchorage

In 1965, a family-reunification policy for admitting immigrants to the United States replaced a system that chose immigrants based on their national origin. With this change, a 40-year hiatus in Asian immigration ended. Today, over three-quarters of US immigrants originate from Asia and Latin America. Two issues that dominate discussions of US immigration policy are the progress of post-reform immigrants and their contributions to the US economy. This book focuses on the earnings and human capital investment of Asian immigrants to the US after 1965. In addition, it provides a primer on studying immigrant economic assimilation, by explaining economists' methodology to measure immigrant earnings growth and the challenges with this approach. The book also illustrates strategies to more fully use census data such as how to measure family income and how to use "panel data" that is embedded in the census. The book is a historical study as well as an extremely timely work from a policy angle. The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act set the United States apart among economically developed countries due to the weight given to family unification. Based on analyses by economists-which suggest that the quality of immigrants to the US fell after the 1965 law-policymakers have called for fundamental changes in the US system to align it with the immigration systems of other countries. This book offers an alternative view point by proposing a richer model that incorporates investments in human capital by immigrants and their families. It challenges the conventional model in three ways: First, it views the decline in immigrants' entry earnings after 1965 as due to investment in human capital, not to permanently lower "quality." Second, it adds human capital investment and earnings growth after entry to the model. And finally, by taking investments by family members into account, it challenges the policy recommendation that immigrants should be selected for their occupational qualifications rather than family connections.

This book offers a collection of distinguished contributions that identify current growth accelerators in India, and suggest policies and strategies to make India's growth more sustainable and inclusive. The papers are divided into three sections, the first of which focuses on issues related to industrial growth in India. The discussions include India's industrial development (manufacturing, construction and mining); role of manufacturing; global value chains; and of environment in industrial development. In turn, section II deals with issues related to trade and FDI as accelerators of India's growth. The respective chapters explore the changing patterns of trade, impacts of technology, and spill-over effects of FDI, to name but a few. Lastly, the third section discusses employment-related issues like measurement of labour input, the dichotomy of the Indian labour market, the nature of firms and employment generation, and impacts of technology on employment. Given its scope and focus, the book offers an invaluable resource for researchers and policymakers alike.

This book is written in support of proposals to reduce work time in order to improve employment opportunities. The authors, both of whom have been deeply involved in shorter workweek policy debates, argue that the failure of the U.S. to enact shorter workweek legislation when it was first proposed in the late 1950s was a significant policy mistake. They argue further that reduced work hours are an effective means to full employment, improved income distribution, and a stronger consumer market--in addition to promising a better life to the contemporary American family. Policymakers concerned with employment issues as well as trade union officials and students of industrial relations will find here a new framework of ideas to support the renewed consideration of shorter workweek legislation.

The authors approach their subject by analyzing the consequences of the U.S. rejection of shorter workweek proposals over the past 30 years. Among them, they contend, are an increasing polarization of incomes, the devotion of more and more resources to the support of economic waste, and a continuing problem with unemployment. The current preoccupation with dollar-denominated growth (a legacy from the Great Depression) has produced a debt-ridden system which increasingly fails to accomodate people's real needs: hence, the authors call for a nonfinancial analysis of economic questions. Taken as a whole, this volume offers both an eloquent defense of leisure and a cogent analysis of the beneficial economic effects of the institution of a shorter workweek or longer annual vacation.