This volume features 15 contributors who argue that technical change can fruitfully be interpreted as an institutionally-structured learning process. These essays show that the analysis of knowledge-generating institutions - including firms, industries, patenting systems and occupations - provides insights into the pace, direction and persistence of technological change. The authors use these insights to both reshape economic theory, and reinterpret the economic development of Britain, the United States, Germany and Japan. Other titles by Ross Thomson includes "The Path to Mechanized Shoe Production in the United States", "Business and Economic History", " The Journal of Economic History", "The New Palgrave", "Social Concept" and "Technology and Culture".

This book aims at exploring the link between corporate and organizational culture, public and private policies, leadership and managerial skills or attitudes, and the successful implementation of work-related healthcare in Europe. Therefore it brings together a wide range of empirical and theoretical contributions from occupational health, management, psychology, medicine, economics, and (organizational) sociology to address the question of how to sustainably promote occupational health. Such important questions are explored as: What aspects of a corporate culture can be associated with health issues? How does leadership style affect the health of employees? How are health-related decisions in the workplace affected by the political environment? To what extent are interventions influenced by corporate culture, leadership and public policy? How can we make such interventions sustainable?

Zagler investigates the interaction between changes in the level of unemployment and changes in the economic rate of growth. It asks, both in theory and in evidence, whether a change in the growth rate of the economy will affect the level of unemployment which the economy experiences and whether a decline in the level of unemployment will foster or deteriorate the growth performance of the economy. MARKET 1: Postgraduate students and scholars in the field or European economics

The hiring of part-time and temporary workers has historically been a mechanism for adjusting imbalances between supply and demand in the labor market. The use of such workers has increased dramatically as technological changes have put a premium on flexibility, and as fringe benefits have come to constitute an increasing percentage of labor costs. Flexibility is sought not only by organizations, but also by individuals: students, women with children, disabled persons, and retirees all benefit by part-time opportunities. Part-Time Work discusses these opportunities, and the risk involved in employment which is sometimes underpaid and devalued, and from which movement to full-time positions is difficult.

This volume represents the work of a cross-section of specialists in labor economics, industrial relations specialists, and social scientists who are engaged in research on the transformation of work in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. Chapters focus on the structural aspects of part-time work, conditions under which such work is performed, constraints imposed on employers by official agencies, and expectations and attitudes of part-time workers rooted in a particular society. Part-Time Work will prove particularly useful to sociologists, labor specialists, and relevant government agencies, organizations, and unions.

The intention of this book is threefold: presenting and advancing German reporting on income distribution and poverty, looking at experiences with advanced reporting schemes in two other EU countries, and discussing concepts for comparable social monitoring in the European Union. The first group of papers elaborates on recent findings for Germany (trends in the personal distribution of income and income poverty, multidimensional approaches to measure poverty and extreme poverty, redistribution). Of special interest is a critical methodological review of the two main German databases for distribution analyses, taking the suggestions of the Canberra Group as a reference. The second group of contributions reviews research on income distribution and poverty in Great Britain and Ireland. The last paper discusses concepts of comparable indicators for poverty and social exclusion in the EU.

The relationship between the number of hours worked and productivity has long fascinated economists and management. It is a central component of the production function that translates inputs to outputs. While increasing the number of hours someone works may increase output, this incisive book demonstrates that there are diminishing returns to long working hours. John Pencavel, of Stanford University, provides an overview of how the length of working hours evolved from the 19th century to today and how the number of working hours affects work performance and other outcomes, including health, well-being, and wages. Diminishing Returns at Work provides a brief history of working hours both in the United States and Britain, including the influence of trade unions pushing for shorter hours of work, the tension with employers who resisted reducing hours, and the influence of legislation and custom. Pencavel discusses various conceptual frameworks for specifying production functions that measure the relationship between inputs and outputs and develops an alternative approach to estimate actual relationships through a reevaluation of classic studies, including the productivity of munitions workers in Britain during the First and Second World Wars, a variety of industries in the United States in the Second World War, and plywood mills in Washington during the 1980s. The book also explores the influence of working hours on the incidence of sickness and injuries and the associations between hours of work and wages. The declining effectiveness of long hours is manifested not only in marketable output but also in a rising probability of ill-health and accidents, and evidence of this has been found both for blue-collar workers and for white-collar workers. In short, shorter hours of work might benefit both firms and workers.

This book presents significant new research on the informal labour markets of developing countries. Examining the critical role of informal labour markets in allowing countries to adjust successfully to the forces of globalization, this volume also brings to the fore a number of problems associated with the expansion of informal employment.

List of Tables and Figures - Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - Restructuring and Recession; K.Purcell and S.Wood - Contract Work in the Recession; R.Fevre - Re-dividing Labour: Factory Politics and Work Reorganisation; B.Jones and M.Rose - Recruitment as a Means of Control; M.Maguire - Multinational Companies and Women's Labour; R.Pearson - Work, Home and the Restructuring of Jobs; H.Bradley - Word Processing and the Secretarial Labour Process; J.Webster - New Technology and the Service Class; J.Child - Rationalisation, Technical Change and Employee Relations; W.Littek - Women and Technology: Opportunity is not Enough; C.Cockburn - Gender, Exploitation and Consent amongst Sheltered Housing Wardens; S.Cunnison - Bibliography - Index

Over the past two decades, economic theory has extended its field of application to non-market goods such as environmental resources and health. Although it is impossible to assign a price to these goods on the basis of market mechanisms alone, the fact that they have no price does not mean that they have no value. One technique in which economists have shown a marked interest is the contingent valuation method (CVM), which has mainly been used to assign a monetary value to environmental goods. It was first applied to natural resources used for recreational purposes. CVM has been applied to health only recently, so that studies in this field are relatively more scarce than those dealing with the environment, although several valuation methodology surveys are available. There has hitherto been no book which has drawn together and analyzed recent contingent valuations in the field of transport accidents. Contingent Valuation, Transport Safety and the Value of Life provides an overview of the experiments conducted in Europe (Denmark, France, the U.K., Sweden and Switzerland). While a number of contributions are critical, others show how the estimates obtained in the area of road transport can be used to assess the adverse health effects of other causes, such as public transport accidents or air pollution.

A representation gap has appeared in the British workplace as trade unions have declined. This book presents original research material from the ESRC's Future of Work program to assess current attempts to close the representation gap. Part One examines initiatives to restore the fortunes of the trade union movement through organizing, partnership and the representation of minorities in the workforce. Part Two looks at non-union representation and the role that works councils, voluntary organizations and single-issue campaigns can play in giving British workers a new voice at work.

Originally published between 1951 and 1987, the 8 volumes in this set: Provide a wide-ranging and critical review of both first and second generation theories of inflation (and the related problem of unemployment), including the classical approach to macroeconomics. Examine how inflation as a policy has come about in modern democracies, how it works, how to avoid it and at what cost Reassess the strengths and weaknesses of incomes policies Examine pay control policies in major Western economies and survey developments from 1945, explore the aims of pay policies and discusse the problems of implementation, comparing the different kinds of policies.

Offering a diverse set of contributions to current social contracting research, The Social Institutions of Capitalism illustrates how social contracts necessarily underlie and facilitate all forms of capitalist production and exchange. The editors bring together novel contributions from fields as diverse as economics, evolutionary game theory, contract law, business ethics, moral philosophy and anthropology to offer multifaceted but subtly intertwined perspectives on fundamental questions concerning human cooperation. This interdisciplinary book, with articles written by academics who are widely known and respected in their respective fields, will be of great value to those interested in political theory, moral philosophy and business ethics.

Increasingly high unemployment has brought with it a multitude of consequences affecting those without jobs and, beyond them, their families, friends and communities. This book reports findings from original research. It explores, often in the words of the unemployed and others involved, what life without a job is like. It challenges many widely held beliefs about the unemployed - that they are workshy, price themselves out of jobs or earn money illegally on the side - and explores where such misconceptions come from. It reveals the inherent contradictions involved in trying to search for work whilst coping with the experience of unemployment.

This is an attempt to examine whether trade unions in Japan contributed to raising wages, productivity and firm's performance. In the western world trade unions are often regarded as organizations which prevent firms from performing well. The Japanese case may be different from Europe and North America. The book investigates who in Japan joins trade unions and asks whether there is any difference in the satisfaction level of employees, the wage level, and labour turnover rates between union members and non-union members.

Hardbound. Research in Labor Economics focuses on various aspects of labor markets and how these markets affect our well-being. As such, this volume contains eleven chapters: three on labor supply, directly dealing with various aspects of the participation decision; two on human capital, the accumulation of worker skills; three directly on employee earnings; and three on the distribution of earnings throughout society.

A historically unique experiment is about to enter its second decade - German unification. Early hopes for a rapid and smooth economic transformation soon turned out to be overly optimistic. Despite massive financial transfers, the political promise of a "blooming landscape" remains a vision. Actual developments have left deep scars on the labor market, and the effects will be felt for decades to come. Was this outcome to be expected, perhaps even inevitable? What went wrong, and what were the available options? Or is the current state of Eastern German labor market in fact better than is commonly assumed?

This fascinating book illustrates the importance of analyzing sexuality by examining ways in which stepping outside heterosexuality necessitates and facilitates long-term economic independence. Based on a life-history study, the book charts key stages in the lives of non-heterosexual women, including their experiences of gendering in childhood and their responses to 'the culture of romantic heterosexuality'. In particular it documents the impact of 'coming' out on their lives and the way sexuality has affected their approach both to intimate relationships and paid work.

 During the last decades the appearance of a family has changed substantially. Not long ago a typical family consisted of an employed man and a home-managing woman living together for their whole life times, and having one or more children, which primarily were raised by the wife.  Today differing living models are much more common than before. House husbands, late motherhood, and a delayed work entry of the children are some of the related phenomena, which at the same time are reasons for and consequences of the changed view on the favorite family. Not surprisingly, this change has provoked much scientific interest. In this book we present a collection of recent economic research work on the resources management and development of families and households respectively. Assorting three general topics, we focus on the time allocation within the household, the family structure and development, and the transition to work of young adults. 

"This is a book well worth reading... it] offers a comprehensive background to the studied society and the complex social relationships at all levels that dominate this rural Greek microcosm. This is an excellent book, of interest to those studying globalization and the integration of markets but also those interested on contemporary Greek society and its entanglements." . Labour History Review

"Lawrence's ethnography is a valuable and intriguing contribution not only to the ethnography of Greece but to the anthropology of globalization and politics. The detailed and multi level analysis of social, political and economic transformations is both critical and well placed... It] reminds anthropology of the necessity of a critical, detailed and encompassing political analysis of the interactions and articulations between the contradictory processes, discourses and practices between people and socio-economic systems, between people and the formations and transformations of power." . Durham Anthropology Journal

"Each chapter of Blood and Oranges is densely packed with argumentation that weaves together existing literature with the political economic facts on the ground. The treatment is a learned one, rich and erudite in its treatment of the circum-stances in Argolida, and always embedding those circum-stances within a broader set of forces and connections." . American Ethnologist

A compelling account of the intersection of globalization and neo-racism in a rural Greek community, this book describes the contradictory political and economic development of the Greek countryside since its incorporation into the European Union, where increased prosperity and social liberalization have been accompanied by the creation of a vulnerable and marginalized class of immigrant laborers. The author analyzes the paradoxical resurgence of ethnic nationalism and neo-racism that has grown in the wake of European unification and addresses key issues of racism, neoliberalism and nationalism in contemporary anthropology."

This interesting work presents a unique perspective on the history of economic thought by showing that classical economists from Adam Smith to Alfred Marshall had sympathy for workers - for example, the theory of the subsistence wage echoed the theological call for a just wage that existed in the middle ages. It also describes how these thinkers promoted either a set of social obligations or a form of social insurance to assist workers. These economic thinkers of the past argued that a subsistence standard of living was important to maintain and improve workers' efficiency and to raise healthy families. The notion that these writers had an undeveloped theory of social costs that they applied to labor should appeal to economists and others concerned with the plight of workers as the modern economy restructures itself.

European trade unions are among the most influential and powerful institutions within Western economies, in many cases cooperating with the government and employers' associations in socio-economic decision-making processes. Consequently they also play an important role in the formulation of policies relating to immigration and the migrant workers, who are arriving and becoming part of the workforce the unions are representing and protecting against employers and other authorities. However, trade unions have not always fulfilled their role as the most obvious organization to defend the interests of foreign workers to the extent they could be expected. The reasons for this are complex and due to conflicts of interests that arise from their intermediary position between employers, government authorities, and indigenous workers. This volume offers a rich analysis of the situation in seven major European countries but also a comparison of the data found and an attempt to account for the differences established. It ends with some conclusions on the prospects of trade unions within the European Union, and on the lessons to be learned from the present analysis.

Increasingly policy makers are focusing on the importance of skills and lifelong learning. The reason for this is that workers with sufficient and up-to-date skills are more productive and have more potential to remain employed. However, the processes that influence skill obsolescence, have largely been neglected in labor economics.

It was in the 1990s that skill issues came to the top of the agenda, because of the general awareness of the rapid technological developments that affect the demand for human capital. Although the analysis of skill-biased technological change is at the heart of this debate, in recent years, the literature has become wider than simple consideration of this aspect and has started to embrace other causes of obsolescence.

The papers in this volume are selected from the papers presented at a conference on Understanding Skills Obsolescence. They advance both the theoretical and empirical understanding of the causes and the effects of skills obsolescence.