Cai Fang has led Chinese and international understanding of the links between Chinese population and economic development over the past two decades. He has defined relationships that have been centrally important to structural change in China, with immense implications for the rest of the world. This book brings together the wisdom from decades of research at the frontiers of knowledge. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand today's world economy.' - Ross Garnaut, University of Melbourne, Australia'Cai Fang's book, China's Economic Growth Prospects, is masterful. This is a book only he could write. Dr Cai takes decades of theory and observations on the world's experience in growth and development, explains it in fully digestible terms and then applies it in a nuanced and understandable way to the reality of what happened, and what is happening, in China. It is a book that is full of hope; it is a book fraught with warnings. It is the only book I know of that truly captures today's China.' - Scott Rozelle, Senior Fellow, Stanford University, US China has grown rapidly since the reform initiation of the 1970s. China's Economic Growth Prospects narrates the contribution of demographic transition to recent economic growth in China, and provides suggestions for ways in which it can sustain growth over the next few decades. The expert author provides reasons for the economic slowdown since the second decade of the twenty-first century; explores the challenges facing China's long-term sustainability of growth with the disappearance of demographic dividend; and proposes policy suggestions. He concludes that, in order to avoid the middle-income trap, economic growth in China must transform from an inputs-driven pattern, to a productivity-driven pattern. Academics, researchers and students of economics and business, particularly those specialising in China, will find this book to be a useful resource. Investment bankers, journalists, politicians and policy makers will find the discussions of past experience and the future potential of the Chinese economy to be of interest.

THE NEW YORK TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE ORGANIZED MIND 'Everyone we know needs this remarkable book ... Essential for the rest of your life' Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive' 'The secrets of ageing well ... a serious, evidence-based guide to what really works and why' Sunday Times ____________________________________________ We have long been encouraged to think of old age as synonymous with a decline in skills. Yet recent studies show that our decision making improves as we age, and our happiness levels peak in our eighties. What really happens to our brains as we get older? In The Changing Mind (published in America as Successful Aging), neuroscientist and internationally bestselling author Daniel Levitin invites us to dramatically shift our understanding of aging, demonstrating the many benefits of growing older. He draws on cutting-edge research to offer realistic guidelines and practical tips for readers to follow during every decade of life, showing us we all can learn from those who age joyously. Find out: -Why the story that older people don't need as many hours of sleep is a myth -What part environment, behaviour and luck play in how our brains age -How to increase the proportion of your life span spent in good health and decrease the time you spend sick -What you can do to maintain strength of body, mind and spirit whilst coping with the limitations of aging Combining science and storytelling, The Changing Mind is a radically new way to think about aging. 'Read this book. Wise, sensitive, and insightful' David Eagleman, author of The Brain 'A comprehensive and fascinating insight into the evolving human brain. This book could change your life' Professor Stephen Westaby, author of Fragile Lives

'All in all, the chapters of the volume provide insightful material 'about how different forms of precarious work are linked to speci?c institutional changes in the labour market and laws governing it but also how they are linked to each other'. . . Situated in the ?eld of Global Labour Studies, the volume goes beyond one of the most central weaknesses of the discipline: its optimistic bias. By systematically including cases in which trade failed or chose not to engage in the organization of precarious workers, the contributions pave the way to a deeper understanding of the challenges within this ?eld.' - British Journal of Industrial Relations With the renaissance of market politics on a global scale, precarious work has become pervasive. This edited collection explores the spread across a number of economic sectors and countries worldwide of work that is invariably insecure, dirty, low-paid, and often temporary and/or part-time. The first part of this cross-disciplinary book analyses the different forms of precarious work that have arisen over the past thirty years in both the Global North and South. These transformations are captured in ethnographically orientated chapters on sweatshops, day labour, homework, Chinese construction workers unpaid contract work, the introduction of insecure contracting into the Korean automotive industry, and the insecurity of Brazilian sugarcane cutters. The case studies all shed light upon how the nature of work and the workplace are changing under the pressures of neoliberal capitalism and what this means for workers. In the second part the editors and contributors then detail some of the ways in which precarious workers are seeking to improve their own situations through their efforts to counter the growth of precarity under neoliberal capitalism, efforts that involve collectively exploring forms of resistance to work restructuring and the failures of traditional trade unions to fully engage with precarious work's growth. Illustrating the impacts of the expansion of precarious work, this book will appeal to students, academics and those generally interested in the issues of the global economy, the reworking of labour markets, the impacts of neoliberal capitalism and ethnographies of the working poor in various parts of the world. Contributors include: L.L.M. Aguiar, M.J. Barreto, S. Chauvin, J. Cock, B. Garvey, M. Gillan, D. Hattatoglu, A. Herod, L. Huilin, K. Joynt, R. Lambert, P. Ngai, J. Tate, M. Thomas, E. Webster, A. Yun

The authors examine developments in labor standards in global supply chains over the past thirty years, analyzing factors that create challenges and opportunities for improving working conditions. They illustrate the complex dynamics within and among key groups, including brands, suppliers, governments, workers and consumers. Using extended examples from China, Honduras, Bangladesh and the United States, as well as new quantitative evidence, the authors analyze stakeholders and mechanisms that create or obstruct opportunities for improving labor rights. They evaluate key clusters of actors and their interests in order to comprehensively map the complex interactions and relationships that make up global supply chains. Original data and analyses, including four in-depth case studies, present a systematic evaluation of the points of leverage for changing labor standards in sectors including apparel, footwear, and electronics. This exciting new contribution to a burgeoning field of study will benefit scholars of labor rights and human rights, as well as students with an interest in labor and working conditions. It also presents critical information for political scientists, NGOs, and practitioners looking to effect change in working conditions and learn more about key players in the global economy.

Migration - both within and between countries - is increasingly one of the world's most important policy issues. The faster the Indian economy grows, the larger will be the geographical redistribution of the workforce from localities of low to those of high employment growth. Thus, territorial mobility is fundamental both to realizing the full economic potential of India's people and to allowing the population to escape from rural poverty. The book analyses the decisive factors in labour migration. Based upon a thorough and robust examination of migrants to three slum localities of Delhi stretching over four decades, the author examines why people migrate, the circumstances of their decision and their experience at their destination. He investigates the myths of urban policy - that "rural development" will reduce migration to the cities, that "growth poles" can be created to divert migrant flows, and that government has the power to influence significantly migration scales and directions while pursuing essentially unpredictable market-driven economic growth. Testing the essential theoretical basis for urban policy in India, the book is of interest to academics studying migration of labour and urbanization, and those interested in South Asian Studies.

Comprising five thematic sections, this volume provides a critical, international and interdisciplinary exploration of employment relations. It examines the major subjects and emerging areas within the field, including essays on institutional theory, voice, new actors, precarious work and employment. Led by a well-respected team of editors, the contributors examine current knowledge and debates within each topic, offering cutting-edge analysis and reflection. The Routledge Companion to Employment Relations is an extensive reference work that offers students and researchers an introduction to current scholarship in the longstanding discipline of employment relations. It will be an essential addition to library collections in business and management, law, economics, sociology and political economy.

Wages are the main determinant of living standards for the vast majority of workers and families around the world. This manual describes a new methodology to measure what constitutes a decent but basic standard of living and how much workers need to earn to afford this, making it possible for researchers to estimate comparable living wages around the world and determine gaps between living wages and prevailing wages. The new, practical methodology in this manual draws on 10 years of research and experience to clearly explain each step in the estimation process, based on standards for a low cost nutritious diet, healthy housing, and all other needs including decent health care and children's education. It stresses transparency and the need for time and place specific living wage estimates, and is replete with examples from country studies that have put it to the test. The authors describe how living wages can be estimated in locations and countries where secondary data are limited and make new, practical recommendations on how to value in kind benefits as partial payment of a living wage. An essential tool for Researchers and NGOs interested in wages, poverty, living standards, and corporate social responsibility issues, this manual will also serve company professionals responsible for corporate social responsibility and human resources. It is also an excellent tool for Bank governments and unions, and international organizations such as the United Nations, UNDP, ILO and World Bank involved in setting minimum wages, poverty alleviation programs and trade policies.

This issue brings together important research from Europe, Australia, North America, Latin America and Asia and considers - How can the global knowledge economy be conceptualised to enable us to understand the current transformations of work taking place globally? What is the relationship between global forces and differing national models of capitalism? How are global value chains being restructured? And are service industries now following the patterns set by manufacturing in the past? Are we seeing the birth of a network economy in which small firms can thrive, or a new phase of consolidation by global transnational corporations? And What are the impacts for regional development for working conditions and for workers' ability to organise?

Make human resources work for you! The third edition of Strategic Human Resources Management offers a truly innovative, integrative framework that examines the traditional functional human resource areas from a strategic perspective. The author undertakes a comprehensive discussion of current issues, practices, and theories while maintaining a coherent and consistent emphasis on strategy. Most human resource textbooks give you the theories without showing you the connections to real life. This textbook lets you see both sides of human resources: the theory and the application. Current examples and references integrated throughout the text and chapter introductions help put human resources into a real-world context.

During the past decade the issue of a general welfare double dividend (an improvement in environmental quality combined with a positive welfare effect) triggered by a tax shift from labour to energy resources has been extensively debated. In this book, Kurt Kratena studies the employment effects of revenue neutral tax shifts from labour to energy, and measures the impact on theoretical and empirical models of the European labour market. A common theoretical framework is devised to analyse the impact of environmental tax reform. Various 'labour market regimes' (competitive labour markets, union wage bargaining and efficiency wages) are derived and taken as the starting point for different specifications of the labour market. The theoretical outcomes of tax shifts in these different labour market regimes are then analysed and compared. The results reveal that whereas an econometric based multi-sectoral model yields significant double dividend effects, a general equilibrium model only finds employment double dividend effects. The book also highlights the potentially positive economic consequences of environmental tax reform such as a shift in demand from energy to non-energy goods. This book provides a concise appraisal of the general double dividend question combined with an innovative analysis of the employment double dividend effect. It utilises extensive empirical evidence and reveals the sensitivity of the various theoretical concepts surrounding the debate. This book will be of interest and relevance to academics in the fields of environmental economics, labour theory and fiscal studies.

`While many economists, policy-makers and commentators often point at negative effects of globalization on wage inequality and income distribution, few specific proposals have emerged so far. Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead's book should be commended for proposing a concrete approach for addressing the wage-related dimension of the social issues raised by globalization---Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva`Remedies should be found for the worrying global wage trends so well documented in this book, not only by governments but by employers themselves, out of enlightened self-interest rather than generous benefaction, in the pursuit of long-term profitability. Daniel shows that there is still much room for tapping the resources of corporate social responsibility: this potential must be exploited to the full before anything else, and therefore it must be investigated and publicized the way he does.'---D. Mario Nuti, Professor, University of Rome `La Sapienza' and formerly of the London Business School `This is an exceptionally important and timely piece of work for the simple reason that it brings to our attention a global crisis - that of unfair wages. In this volume, Daniel provides an excellent analytical framework and tool that can be applied at firm level. I fully expect that the different dimensions of the fair wage proposed in this book will become standard features of company annual wage reviews and of social audits.'- Auret Van Heerden, President and CEO, Fair Labor Association Over the past decade the emergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has helped to improve corporate governance by tackling such burning issues as child labour and human rights violations. However, as the author argues in this important new book, the time has now come to incorporate wage issues into CSR. Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead proposes a new methodology, the `Fair Wage' approach, providing CSR actors with a coherent and comprehensive set of fair wage dimensions and indicators. Application of this new approach in a large-scale auditing exercise on wages in Asia and a number of qualitative case studies in China provides unique, first-hand information on wage practices among suppliers. The results confirm the need to address wage issues using a broad spectrum of wage dimensions, including living wages, minimum wages, social dialogue, payment of working hours and wage development in accordance with prices, enterprise performance and changes in technology and human capital. The `Fair Wage' approach advocated in this book is a first, serious and concerted effort to address the issue of wages, which are increasingly being used as the adjustment variable at the end of the supply chain.

The sectoral composition of economies is fundamental to the understanding of growth, unemployment and the relative performance of nations. Henri de Groot models the relationship between these four factors from a single theoretical perspective in order to determine the foundations of the wealth of nations. Special issues that are addressed include: * the macroeconomic consequences of outsourcing and downsizing * unemployment and catching-up * the relationship between growth and unemployment in a dual labour market * the relative stagnancy of Europe versus the USA in terms of productivity levels and unemployment * transitional dynamics in two-sector endogenous growth models * the causes of deindustrialization * the role of trade unions and efficiency-wage considerations Growth, Unemployment and Deindustrialization will be of paramount interest to scholars of endogenous growth theory, economic growth and unemployment, labour market economics and industrial organization.

Competing claims on time in work and family life have become inherent, unavoidable features of the Western world. As households increasingly juggle competing responsibilities, and as job expectations and parenting standards intensify, many people feel torn between work and family. This book aims to deepen our understanding of a variety of conditions that influence the successes and difficulties experienced in attempting to equally accommodate both work and private lives. The contributors argue that conditions which create competing claims on time can originate from the organization, from the household, or from both; a multi-level and multi-actor approach is thus applied to the problem. Paying detailed attention to time use and time pressures, the contributors focus not only on the causes of disturbed balances between work and care, but also on solutions to these competing claims. The conclusions reached provide policymakers and implementers with evidence that certain elements of the organization and the household can be seen as parameters that are susceptible to directed policy-based intervention. This comprehensive, multinational and multi-disciplinary study encompasses sociology, economics, geography and urban science perspectives from across Europe, US, and Australia. It will prove essential reading for students of social scientific disciplines, including family and organizational sociology and economics, and for policymakers and researchers focusing on work-family issues.

This is the first of three volumes containing published and unpublished economic papers of Orley Ashenfelter written between 1966 and 1995. A complete and cross-referenced chronological list of all the works featured in this set is included. The volumes begin with an interview in which Professor Ashenfelter covers highlights of his professional life, a discussion of many of the essays and papers featured in these volumes, and his reflections on the development of economics over the course of his long and distinguished career. Education, Training and Discrimination and Economic Institutions and the Demand and Supply of Labor are the companion volumes to Employment, Labor Unions and Wages, which together provide a distinguished collection of Ashenfelter's essays.

Featuring new findings and fresh insights from an international roster of labor economists, including such eminent authors as Morley Gunderson, Harry Holzer, and Paul Ryan, this book delves into a uniquely wide range of high-profile labor issues affecting youth in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan - from declining job, wage, and training prospects to workplace health hazards, immigration, union activism, and new policy strategies. This widely accessible introduction to the latest research in the area presents original empirical economic studies in an engaging style. All may find something of interest in the host of controversial topics of lively public debate that are covered, including: youth unemployment, earnings mobility, racial/ethnic and gender inequalities, training quality and access, job hazards, health insurance coverage, immigration, minimum wage laws, union organizing, and global economic competition. Young Workers in the Global Economy is written in a clear and accessible style for a broad readership ranging from scholars and college students to employers, unions, career counselors, human resource professionals, vocational trainers, policy analysts, government officials, immigration and health care activists, as well as to the wider public concerned about the future of youth career prospects.

The relationship between education and income inequality is of fundamental importance. In this book, an international group of renowned contributors focus on patterns of inequality and their relationship to education using recent data from European countries. The fresh and unique research deals with important topics such as: wage and education inequality, differences in earnings related to gender, the role of labour market institutions, demographic and cohort effects on inequality, intergenerational education and income mobility, the extent of 'overeducation' and job and life satisfaction inequality. The wealth of new empirical evidence presented will make this book an invaluable resource for labour and education economists, educationalists, policy-makers and academics interested in the distribution of income, inequality and education within the fields of sociology and public policy.

This innovative book assesses the impact of labour standards on the competitiveness of firms through a comparison of developing and industrialized countries.The lack of a strict code of labour standards in developing countries is thought to result in unfair competition, which industrialized countries have used to justify protectionist policies. Developing countries are seen to oppose the adoption of labour standards, believing that such measures are likely to jeopardize their competitiveness in world markets. This book analyses both of these positions within the context of the current political debate on the subject. The authors investigate the reasons for implementing labour standards, and measure their impact upon firm competitiveness using a variety of empirical tests and statistics from approximately 165 countries. They conclude that labour standards do not have a significant impact on the competitiveness of firms or economies as a whole. From their evidence the authors offer policy advice including the decentralization of decision making for implementing labour standards, and the adoption throughout the world of core labour standards. Labour Standards and International Competitiveness will be welcomed by academics interested in international economics, development economics and labour economics, as well as by policymakers and practitioners working in international organizations.

The debate on whether high standards of labour market legislation affect economic growth and the rate of employment is topical and important. The contributors to this book address three main issues: how Taiwan's labour market was able to work so well prior to 1996, maintaining full employment for the last 40 years, regardless of the rapid change of industrial structure in the 1980s; what factors can be attributed to the rapid deterioration of Taiwan's labour market performance since 1996; the measures adopted by the Taiwan government in tackling the recent high unemployment rate, how effective these policies are and what lessons scholars and public policy makers in other countries can learn from Taiwan's experience. An integrated labour-market model (a revision of the Harris-Todaro dualistic labour market model) is presented which can be used to analyze labour market operation in other developing countries. The effectiveness of various policies adopted by the Taiwanese government in tackling high unemployment rate is examined and the findings shed light on public policies in other developing and newly industrialized countries.The Labour Market and Economic Development of Taiwan will appeal to scholars of Asian studies, public policy, economic development and labour economists.

Featuring new findings and fresh insights from an international roster of labor economists, including such eminent authors as Morley Gunderson, Harry Holzer, and Paul Ryan, this book delves into a uniquely wide range of high-profile labor issues affecting youth in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan - from declining job, wage, and training prospects to workplace health hazards, immigration, union activism, and new policy strategies. This widely accessible introduction to the latest research in the area presents original empirical economic studies in an engaging style. All may find something of interest in the host of controversial topics of lively public debate that are covered, including: youth unemployment, earnings mobility, racial/ethnic and gender inequalities, training quality and access, job hazards, health insurance coverage, immigration, minimum wage laws, union organizing, and global economic competition. Young Workers in the Global Economy is written in a clear and accessible style for a broad readership ranging from scholars and college students to employers, unions, career counselors, human resource professionals, vocational trainers, policy analysts, government officials, immigration and health care activists, as well as to the wider public concerned about the future of youth career prospects.

Moving Towards the Virtual Workplace provides the first comprehensive overview of the many impacts of telework/telecommuting adoption, from both a managerial and societal perspective. This book argues that telework will be increasingly adopted in the twenty-first century, representing a far-reaching move toward the virtual workplace, with dramatic implications for the management of the workforce and for society at large. Telework, like mass production, has the potential to change society. It permits the significant reduction of the spatial and temporal constraints faced by the conventional organization of the workplace. The new virtual workplace constitutes a key step in the evolution towards a virtual society. In order to realistically assess telework's diffusion potential, the book studies, both conceptually and empirically, the technological, institutional, organizational and individual-level parameters that influence the decision to adopt telework, and the likelihood of telework's success. The book concludes that telework can have enormous socioeconomic impacts, both as a macro-level tool, reducing road transport externalities, and as a managerial instrument to motivate highly skilled workers in knowledge-based industries. As such this fascinating book will be invaluable to scholars of management, transport, economics and industrial and union relations. The telework and business community, both scholarly and practical will also find the book of great interest.

This book presents over twenty authors' reflections on 'curating care' - and presents a call to give curatorial attention to the primacy of care for all life, and for more 'caring curating' that responds to the social, ecological and political analysis of curatorial caregiving. Social and ecological struggles for a different planetary culture based on care and respect for the dignity of life is reflected in contemporary curatorial practices that explore human and nonhuman interdependence. The prevalence of themes of care in curating is a response to a dual crisis: the crisis of social and ecological care that characterizes global politics, and the professional crisis of curating under the pressures of the increasingly commercialized cultural landscape. Foregrounding that all beings depend on each other for life and survival, this book collects theoretical essays, methodological challenges and case studies from curators working in different global geographies to explore the range of ways in which curatorial labour is rendered as care. Practicing curators, activists and theorists situate curatorial labour in the context of today's general care crisis. This volume answers to the call to more fully understand how their transformative work allows for imagining the future of bodily, social, and environmental care and the ethics of interdependency differently.

Estlund and Wachter have assembled a feast on the economic analysis of issues in labor and employment law for scholars and policy-makers. The volume begins with foundational discussions of the economic analysis of the individual employment relationship and collective bargaining. It then progresses to discussions of the theoretical and empirical work on a wide range of important labor and employment law topics including: union organizing and employee choice, the impact of unions on firm and economic performance, the impact of unions on the enforcement of legal rights, just cause for dismissal, covenants not to compete and employment discrimination. Anyone who wants to study what economists have to say on these topics would do well to begin with this collection.' - Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Indiana University Bloomington School of Law, USThis Research Handbook assembles the original work of leading legal and economic scholars, working in a variety of traditions and methodologies, on the economic analysis of labor and employment law. In addition to surveying the current state of the art on the economics of labor markets and employment relations, the volume's 16 chapters assess aspects of traditional labor law and union organizing, the law governing the employment contract and termination of employment, employment discrimination and other employer mandates, restrictions on employee mobility, and the forum and remedies for labor and employment claims. Comprising a variety of approaches, the Research Handbook on the Economics of Labor and Employment Law will appeal to legal scholars in labor and employment law, industrial relations scholars and labor economists. Contributors: R. Arnow-Richman, S. Deakin, Z.J. Eigen, R.A. Epstein, C.L. Estlund, S. Estreicher, B.T. Hirsch, A. Hyde, S. Issacharoff, C. Jolls, B.E. Kaufman, M.M. Kleiner, B.I. Sachs, E. Scharff, S.J. Schwab, M.L. Wachter, D. Weil

During the past two centuries, major technological breakthroughs such as the steam engine and electricity have acted as the catalysts for growth and have resulted in a marked increase in material well-being. The dominant technology today - information and communication technology (ICT) - does not seem to drive growth as effectively and has coincided with an apparent increase in wage inequality. This book provides explanations of these two characteristics of modern economies and analyses them from both an individual and integrated perspective. Richard Nahuis explores and combines the seemingly separate phenomena of wage inequality between high-skilled and low-skilled workers, and the relatively low productivity growth experienced by most countries. The author provides a number of alternative theories for the increase in wage inequality as a result of new technologies, combined with an extensive review of the associated literature. He goes on to detail the technological revolution, describe why this does not necessarily result in high productivity growth and outline the best methods to measure productivity in the new economy. This exhaustive exploration of productivity growth and wage inequality between high-skilled and low-skilled workers in the knowledge economy will be welcomed by economists and policymakers interested in the complex relationships between labour markets, innovation and technical change.