Against the background of increasing interest in the changing nature and quality of work, The Political Economy of Work offers a new and unique assessment of the theoretical analysis of work. The author challenges some common preconceptions about work and promotes an original approach to the field, contemplating the nature and development of ideas on work and its impact on human well-being drawing on such burgeoning literatures as the 'economics of happiness'. Spencer approaches the subject through a careful examination of the history of thought on work over the last three hundred years. A key focus is the development of ideas on work in mainstream economics, starting with the mercantilists and the classical economists, and continuing with neoclassical economists (e.g. Jevons, Marshall). The contributions of modern approaches including the new 'information-theoretic' economics and the new 'economics of happiness' are also discussed. The author sees flaws in the depiction of work in mainstream economics and instead draws insight from the writings of critics of the mainstream paradigm, such as the nineteenth century 'utopian' writers (Godwin, Fourier, Carlyle, Ruskin, Morris), Marx, and the old institutional economists (Commons, Veblen). The alternative approach outlined in the book stresses the barriers to rewarding work under capitalism and develops a case for radical change in the organisation of work. The book cuts across different disciplinary boundaries and is likely to appeal to researchers in a number of different fields, including labour economics, labour history, the sociology of work, industrial relations, and human resource management. It will appeal to all those who wish to promote a more critical understanding of the role that work can and ought to play in society.

Title first published in 2003. This informative volume addresses the impact of the EU on national policies to combat poverty in European member states. The editors bring together leading academics to discuss the issue of and fight against poverty in Germany in particular, within the context of ongoing trends and debates across other European states.

This title was first published in 2003. Most European cities have experienced problems in certain neighbourhoods that are termed deprived or excluded . Traditionally these were found in the oldest urban areas with lowest quality housing, but since the 1980s, such areas have emerged in housing estates built around the cities' edges. These neighbourhoods are marked by visible physical and social problems that disfigure the otherwise pleasant urban landscape, and can be seen as urban sores . This engaging and thought-provoking book provides a deeper understanding of why urban decay and deprived neighbourhoods appear in certain parts of cities, as well as how they affect residents and cities in general. Drawing on in-depth empirical research from Denmark, it compares this with other studies from Europe and the United States. The author combines theories and methodologies from the fields of geography (on segregation), economics (on processes of urban decay) and social research (on social exclusion and deprived neighbourhoods) to provide original, illuminating and invaluable insights.

This title was first published in 2001. Drawing on the fields of labour economics and industrial relations, this book simultaneously applies human capital theory and institutional analysis to an explanation of occupational and other wage differentials. This outstanding study contains a wealth of reference material on both the economic and normative determinants of wages. Destined to become a landmark study in the area of Australian wage determination, the book is an essential text for labour economists, industrial relations specialists, researchers and policy makers alike.

This title was first published in 2000. The UNDP announced on 29th July 1999 that 'A human crisis of monumental proportions is emerging in the former Soviet Union.' This book reports on the crisis through original and detailed data made possible by the changes that have taken place in Russia in the 1990s. Based on an EU and ODA funded project, it examines in depth the patterns of contemporary unemployment and poverty, the origins of Russian social policies and their aims, implementation and effects up to 2000. The conclusion situates the findings within a discussion of the future of the Russian welfare state and the policy choices, alternatives and consequences emerging in the context of current social conflicts.

Allan Flanders was one of the leading British industrial relations academics and his ideas exerted a major influence on government labor policy in the 1960s and 1970s. But as well as being an Oxford academic with a strong interest in theory and labor reform, he was also a lifelong political activist. Originally trained in German revolutionary ethical socialism in the early 1930s, he was the founder and joint editor of Socialist Commentary, the leading outlet for ?revisionist? social democratic thinking in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also the leading figure in the influential 1950s ?think tank? Socialist Union and played a key part in the bitter factional struggles inside the Labour Party. The main argument of the book is that Flanders? ethical socialist ideas constituted both his strength and his weakness. Their rigor, clarity and sweep enabled him to exert a major influence over government attempts to negotiate labor reforms with the trade unions. Yet he proved unable to explain the failure of the reforms amidst rising levels of industrial conflict, as his intellectual rigor turned into ideological rigidity. The failure of negotiated reform led to Margaret Thatcher's neo-liberal assault on trade union power in the 1980s.

This title was first published in 2001. This book is the result of an international study by leading economists and sociologists from across Europe and North America. The response of the new social economy (primarily voluntary and co-operative sectors) to social exclusion and employability in the context of crises of unemployment and the welfare state is of wide international concern. This book looks specifically at the growth of enterprises and initiatives whose primary aim is the integration of unemployed and disadvantaged people into work. A common framework has been used in each of the country studies, thus allowing an interesting international comparative perspective to be developed. There is considerable interest in how the third sector is changing internationally in response to rapidly changing work and welfare systems. By distilling international experience this book makes an important contribution to debates about new ways of addressing the central issues of unemployment and social exclusion of disadvantaged people in society.

This is an excellent book. Bruce Kaufman, in his ever thoughtful way, has not just analyzed the history of the development of HRM, but assembled 17 chapters in which world-class local experts report on that history in their own country. The book is full of fascinating information, stories and analysis and will be a touchstone text for everyone wanting to break out of the usual narrow ethnocentric view that often afflicts studies of HRM.' - Chris Brewster, University of Reading, UKThis innovative book describes the historical development of human resource management (HRM) in seventeen countries around the world. The chapters, written by national experts, describe the origin of HRM in the late 19th - early 20th century and its evolution and development as a business practice to the present day. Offering a comprehensive cross-disciplinary perspective, the chapters discuss the economic, political and social factors that shaped HRM in each country, including the role of national labor movements and labor law regimes. The authors also provide an examination of HR practices and systems within firms, starting with rudimentary hiring and compensation a century ago, progressing to personnel and industrial relations programs in the last century, and culminating in modern human resource management practices today, including strategic high-performance systems. This unique book is the first to identify the commonalities and differences in HRM both across nations and over time. A book with real international appeal, The Development of Human Resource Management Across Nations will interest researchers, students and practitioners involved with management, industrial relations, labor economics, organizational behavior and employment law. Contributors: C. Aldao-Zapiola, A. Camuffo, L. Chen, G. Costa, L. Gonas, H. Gospel, Z. Guimaraes Horta, I. Gurkov, I. Harpaz, B.E. Kaufman, P. Larson, Y-M. Lee, M. Meyer, E. Morgunov, J. Rojot, R. Rosenberger, A. Settles, J.S. Sodhi, Z. Su, L. Tuzuner, J-W. Woo, C. Wright, O. Zelenova, X. Zeng

This title was first published in 2003.The principal economic units in most developing countries are family based farm households. Empirical models that recognize the dual role of the farm household as producer and consumer in a theoretically consistent manner are essential tools for policy analyses. This book provides an important extension of the conventional farm household model by developing an analytical framework that allows for efficiency differences between family and hired labour as inputs in farm production. The model is estimated with survey data from the southern lowland region of Nepal. The estimation strategy is a two-step process. The first step estimates a farm-level production function in which is embedded a test for heterogeneity between family and hired labour. The labour heterogeneity detected in the production function estimation is incorporated, at the second step, in the labour supply estimation in a theoretically consistent manner. The methodological novelty is to relate the shadow wage rate for family labour to the observed market wage rate for hired labour, adjusted for the differential productivity of family and hired labour detected in the production function estimation.

This book presents a historical account of plantations in India in the context of the modern world economy. It brings history up to the present, thereby showing how history can assist in explaining contemporary conditions and trends. The author focuses on labour and economic development problems and uses the World Systems theory so as to demonstrate the practical utility of the theory and its limitations as a guide to historical research.

Based on extensive archival research, the book interprets the dynamics of plantation capitalism by focusing on the work, life and struggle of the dalits on plantations in colonial and post-colonial South India as they evolved from the mid-19th century. It argues that these elements of the plantation life-world were fashioned by the specific characteristics of the workers' location within the capitalist world-economy, the then prevailing local social structure and the scheme of disciplining to which the workers were subjected to. Treating the relations among various social forces the planting communities, the oppressed communities (dalits in India), the regional and national state, and the Imperial regime, this book fills a gap in academic literature on capitalism, economic development, and globalization.

This title was first published in 2000. One of the most comprehensive overviews of regional development and policy emergence in the Central and East European countries to date, this book focuses on economic and social cohesion, bringing together a wide range of empirical research and discussion material.

The Covid-19 pandemic has tragically exposed how today's welfare state cannot properly protect its citizens. Despite the valiant efforts of public sector workers, from under-resourced hospitals to a shortage of housing and affordable social care, the pandemic has shown how decades of neglect has caused hundreds to die. In this bold new book, leading policy analyst Ursula Huws shows how we can create a welfare state that is fair, affordable, and offers security for all. Huws focuses on some of the key issues of our time - the gig economy, universal, free healthcare, and social care, to criticize the current state of welfare provision. Drawing on a lifetime of research on these topics, she clearly explains why we need to radically rethink how it could change. With positivity and rigor, she proposes new and original policy ideas, including critical discussions of Universal Basic Income and new legislation for universal workers' rights. She also outlines a 'digital welfare state' for the 21st century. This would involve a repurposing of online platform technologies under public control to modernize and expand public services, and improve accessibility.

This book begins from the central premise that progressive social change requires collective struggle underpinned by a clear strategy, and that processes of neoliberal globalisation have altered the cartography upon which social struggle takes place. Drawing on insights from the knowledge production processes of labour movements around the world, this research seeks to highlight the central importance of knowledge production and processes of learning within social movements.

Providing both a comprehensive theoretical and empirical introduction to the relationship between globalisation, knowledge and social movement strategy, the authors contend that the production and dissemination of alternative knowledge is central to a resurgence of working-class power. By presenting a wide range of case-studies, the book highlights the centrality of knowledge production and circulation processes to the potential expansion and revitalization of the role of civil society in the promotion of social democracy. The chapter contributors include activist-scholars, whose work represents a broad perspective on 'labour' including the unemployed, the self-employed at the margins of the labour market, the unorganized, and those who work in the informal economy.

Delivering work which is at once theoretically rich and yet empirically informed, this work will be of interest to students and scholars from a range of disciplines including International Relations, Development Studies, Critical Labour and Social Movement Studies, and Education. It will also be of relevance to activists and practitioners engaged in strategy development and education in various social movements.

Creativity has become part of the language of regeneration experts, urban planners and government policy makers attempting to revive the economic and cultural life of cities in the 21st century. Concepts such as the creative class, the creative industries and bohemian cultural clusters have come to dominate thinking about how creativity can contribute to urban renewal. Spaces of Vernacular Creativity offers a critical perspective on the instrumental use of arts and creative practices for the purposes of urban regeneration or civic boosterism.

Several important contributions are brought into one volume to examine the geography of locally embedded forms of arts and creative practice. There has been an explosion of interest in both academic and policy circles in the notion of creativity, and its role in economic development and urban regeneration. This book argues for a rethinking of what constitutes creativity, foregrounding non-economic values and practices, and the often marginal and everyday spaces in which creativity takes shape. Drawing on a range of geographic contexts including the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, the book explores a diverse array of creative practices ranging from art, music, and design to community gardening and anticapitalist resistance. The book examines working class, ethnic and non-elite forms of creativity, and a variety of creative spaces, including rural areas, suburbs and abandoned areas of the city. The authors argue for a broader and more inclusive conception of what constitutes creative practice, advocating for an approach that foregrounds economies of generosity, conviviality and activism. The book also explores the complexities and nuances that connect the local and the global and finally, the book provides a space for valuing alternative, marginal and displaced knowledges.

Spaces of Vernacular Creativity provides an important contribution to the debates on the creative class and on the role of value of creative knowledge and skills. The book aims to contribute to contemporary academic debates regarding the development of post-industrial economies and the cognitive cultural economy. It will appeal to a wide range of disciplines including, geography, applied art, planning, cultural studies, sociology and urban studies, plus specialised programmes on creativity and cultural industries at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.

Immigrant-owned enterprises are a highly visible phenomenon, but frequently and increasingly so after 9/11, immigration has been cast in pessimistic and apocalyptic terms which became associated with rising xenophobia and restrictive legislation, such as the Patriot Act in the United States. This book examines the issue of immigration and the contribution immigrant enterprise plays in the economic development of gateway cities such as London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Amsterdam and Miami, cities which appear as the living embodiment of globalization. Questioning the extent to which cities are transformed by immigrants themselves, 'from below', this revealing book points to relationships with wider processes, such as the legal and political framework and the restructuring by capital of particular industries and localities. What happens to immigrants is shaped by membership of particular groups, historical circumstances, and the reproduction of social stratification rooted in class, gender, race, age. The book points to the development of social and economic differentiation, and challenges popular stereotypes of immigrants in business. Its findings point to a highly differentiated enterprise structure. This informative volume contains rich case study material. Ideal for students and professionals, it demonstrates that the recognition of diversity is a necessary first step to understanding winners and losers in immigrant enterprise.

The decision to emigrate has historically held differing promises and costs for women and for men. Exploring theories of difference in labor market participation, network formation and the immigrant organising process, on belonging and diaspora, and a theory of 'vulnerability, ' A Global History of Gender and Migration looks critically at two centuries of the migration experience from the perspectives of women and men separately and together.

Uniquely investigating the subject globally over time, this book incorporates the history of migration in areas as far-flung as Yemen, Sudan, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, the Soviet Union, the US, and the UK, an approach that allows for patterns to emerge over time. A Global History of Gender and Migration further shows that although there are various points on which migrant men and women differ, and several theories exist to explain these differences, this comprehensive guide offers a unifying thesis on the theories and practice of migration, adding to our insight into the mechanisms underlying the creation of differences between migrant men and women.

Edited by three very well known academics in the field and contributed to by John Smithin, Laurence Moss and G. C. Harcourt, this volume reflects the breath of the honouree's interests and as such it covers a wide range of topics including political economy, labour economics, history of economic thought and macroeconomics.

Ingrid Rima, one of the first women to teach economics in America, has been a major figure in the development of Post-Keynesian economics over the past forty years. Rima has made numerous contributions to the fields of labour economics, history of economic thought, and Post Keynesian economic theory and in this volume the editors and contributors recognize them.

This volume looks at the living and working conditions of street vendors in different cities of the world. It examines the legal guidelines regarding control of public space and the rights of the working poor to earn their livelihood, and the civic authorities' constant regulation of this space.

The contemporary framework for productivity measurement presented in this volume focuses on the impact of information technology on economic growth. The remarkable behavior of information technology prices provides the key to the resurgence of productivity growth in the USA and the world economy. This essential volume brings together recent research by leading scholars in this important field. Professor Jorgenson has provided an original introduction which offers useful insights into this exciting area of study.

Across the traditional welfare states of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada there has been increasing emphasis on 'activation' by the unemployed as a tool for fighting unemployment. The core idea of activation programmes is the integration and empowerment of jobseekers through active work-related measures rather than passive income support. However, the empirical evidence of the efficacy of activation programmes is far from conclusive and there have been no systematic studies of the effects of activation programmes on the lives of the unemployed people who come into contact with them. This book is based on a detailed ethnographic study of the highly praised Swedish rehabilitation organization Samhall. The result is a key volume for those working and studying within welfare, poverty, disability and special needs.

This book explores the impact of neoliberal globalization on labour markets and the state in the developed and developing world. It focuses especially on the United States and the economies of Asia - in particular, India. Liberalized trade and investment are thought by neoliberals to be the best levers for raising labour standards, provided labour market flexibility and capital market restructuring accompany them. Labour market flexibility and capital market restructuring, at a first glance, appear to be complementary and symmetric policies. In practice, however, they might have very asymmetric consequences. This book addresses these issues, and it presents a comprehensive analysis of the key questions such as: How far is globalization a 'real' threat to the conventional systems of wage fixation, employment pattern, and basic rights at work in both developed, as well as underdeveloped countries? Are casualization and informalization of the workforce direct outcomes of deregulation? How do labour organizations cope with the volatility of the labour market? Are the existing labour market conditions and forms of labour organizations misfits in the globalized business world? Is it at all feasible to choose a high road that combines some degree of labour market flexibility with better labour standards? This book will be of interest to academics working on International Development, Development Economics, Political Economy, Comparative Labour Studies and Asian Studies.

First published in 1998, this volume initially focused on Chilean pension reform, on which the author has published elsewhere, before moving onto Latin America more widely, with coverage extending from 1990 to the reform in Costa Rica and the Mexican pension reform in 1997. It emerged in the wake of reforms including in Peru (1993), Argentina and Colombia (1994) and Uruguay (1996). Particular focus is given to the new individual capitalization pension plans, along with arguments on the ignoring of pension schemes and its consequences, the connection of pension schemes to the labour market and the impact of pension schemes on the least advantaged. The Chilean model in particular has received praise from the IMF and the World Bank and these Latin American pension reforms will be of interest as a paradigm for other countries.

This book provides a detailed examination of the impact of globalisation on plantation labour, dominated by women labour, in India. The studies presented here highlight the perpetuation of low wages, inferior social status and low human development of workers in this sector and point out the movement of labour away from this sector and the resultan

First published in 1999, this volume responds to a large and growing interest among health policy and research circles on the use of purchasing alliances to leverage change in health care. This book gives detailed and useful specifics on how a leading alliance has fared in California, the most competitive health care market in the United States. Although it is generally accepted that large organizations are more effective purchasers of health insurance, little work has been done to carefully examine the reasons that underlie that phenomenon. Yet, creating interventions and designing potential solutions requires a thorough understanding of the issues. The econometric analysis adds to the limited literature on the influence of premium on choice behaviour for employees of small firms, and introduces an analysis of choice behaviour in a purchasing cooperative setting. The political section of this book presents a much more detailed historical account and analysis of California's small group market reforms, the most significant health-related legislation in the state in the prior decade, than has been previously available. The conclusions are becoming particularly relevant, both in California and elsewhere, as the issues of reform of the individual market for health insurance comes to the forefront.

First published in 1997, this volume responds to a world in the midst of a telecommunications revolution. What this means is that societies throughout the world are now provided with new opportunities to solve nagging problems. One problem which is the focus of this book is the continual pockets of poverty that exist in countries around the world. In this regard, welfare reform has been slow in coming as nations struggle for allocating limited resources for meeting the needs of all citizens within its boundaries. This book describes a welfare model that is quite innovative, imaginative, but also practical. It can be readily implemented in any country in the world, although the example used in this book is that of one country. The welfare reform model suggested here is all about freedom, opportunity and equity. At its conclusion, it challenges the reader to take welfare reform to the next level.