Monograph comprising eight contributions on the concept and economic analysis of the codetermination movement in Western Europe, with particular reference to Germany, Federal Republic, Sweden and the UK - reviews the historical development of workers participation, and deals with economic implications respecting investment, employment and income distribution. Diagrams, graphs, references and statistical tables.

Traditional firm structures are currently undergoing drastic change. The changes that the traditional firm is currently undergoing will permit active involvement of labor at all levels of the firm's decision-making process, offer workers substantial job security, protect workers' firm specific investment against excessive losses, guarantee workers at least market rates of return on their human capital and will allow labor a major role in shaping the firm's work rules and the production environment. These changes pose an enormous challenge to practitioners and policy-makers alike. The difficulties of appropriately modeling the new codetermined firms are also formidable. The present collection of papers furnishes building blocks for a better analysis of complex firm structures. The present effort is designed to be a workbook, a point of departure on which new research and teaching is to be built, and a work of reference on what has already been accomplished.

Is labor's day over or is this the big moment? Acclaimed author Geoghegan asserts that only a new kind of labor movement can help the country switch course toward a future that is fair and prosperous for all Americans.

This second edition assesses some of the major refinements, extensions, and useful applications that have developed in neoinstitutionalist thought in recent years. More attention is given to the overlap between the New Institutional Economics and developments in economic history and political science. In addition to updated references, new material includes analysis of parallel developments in the field of economic sociology and its attacks on representatives of the NIE as well as an explanation of the institution-as-an-equilibrium-of-game approach. Already an international best seller, Institutions and Economic Theory is essential reading for economists and students attracted to the NIE approach. Scholars from such disciplines as political science, sociology, and law will find the work useful as the NIE continues to gain wide academic acceptance. A useful glossary for students is included. Eirik Furubotn is Honorary Professor of Economics, Co-Director of the Center for New Institutional Economics, University of Saarland, Germany and Research Fellow, Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University. Rudolph Richter is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Director of the Center for New Institutional Economics, University of Saarland, Germany.

Since 2001 the Statistical Offices in Germany offer access to micro level panel data that linked information from various waves of a survey over time. These panel data enormously extended the research potential of data from official statistics by allowing dynamic analyses and control for unobserved heterogeneity via panel econometric methods. A second generation of data sets which became available recently has an even higher research potential. These new data combine information for firms gathered in different surveys (or from external sources) that could not be analyzed jointly before. Merging firm level data from different surveys to construct data sets that cover information on a wider range of variables than the ones collected in any of these surveys, one at a time, is the basic idea of the project AFiD. AFiD is an acronym for the German Amtliche Firmendaten fr Deutschland (official firm data for Germany). The papers in this issue present first results generated with this new type of firm level data and discussions.