In this highly original and personal book, Ruben J. Garcia argues forcefully that we must center the minimum wage as a tool for fighting structural racism. Employing the lessons of critical race theory to show how low minimum wages and underenforcement of workplace laws have always been features of our racially stratified society, Garcia explains why we must follow the leadership of social movements by treating increases in minimum wage levels and enforcement as matters of racial justice. Offering solutions that would benefit all workers, especially the immigrants and people of color most often made victims of wage theft, Critical Wage Theory is essential reading for anyone who seeks a more just future for the working class.

Whilst there is widespread agreement about the goals of economic policy, consensus about how best to achieve them can be harder to achieve. No issues are more contentious than employment and income distribution. In recent years full employment and a just distribution of incomes have been downgraded as policy objectives, as greater priority has been given to price stability and balance of payments objectives. This emphasis has been supported by a mainstream economic theory which has an unswerving belief in the ability of market forces to achieve a satisfactory regulation of employment and income distribution Other economists have remained more sceptical, and none more so than Kurt Rothschild. This new volume collects together his twenty two most important essays in the area, many of which are appearing in English for the first time. Throughout pure theory is linked to relevant practical investigations.

Known for his seminal work in efficiency-wage theory, Andrew Weiss surveys recent research in the field and presents new results. He shows how wage schedules affect the kinds of workers a firm employs and how well those workers perform on the job. Using straightforward examples, he demonstrates how efficiency-wage theory can explain labor market outcomes and guide government policy. There is a separate section of applications to less developed countries. "Efficiency-wage models represent one of the most important developments in economic theory of recent years. They have, at last, provided integrated explanations both of macroeconomic phenomena, such as unemployment and wage rigidity, and microeconomic phenomena, such as wage dispersion. Weiss--one of the pioneers of efficiency-wage theory--provides here a masterful survey, a lucid and systematic and yet critical account of this rapidly developing branch of economics. This book should be required reading in all courses in macroeconomics."--Joseph Stiglitz, Stanford University "Efficiency Wages should be on the bookshelf of all labor and macroeconomists."--Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard University "A splendid monograph ... most readable... I will put it on my reading list."--Partha Dasgupta, Stanford University Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Labour and the Wage: A Critical Perspective offers a new perspective on why labour law struggles to respond to problems such as low pay and under-inclusive employment. A Marxian-inspired ontological approach sheds new light on the role of labour law in a capitalist economy and on the limitations and potential of labour law when it comes to bringing about social change. It illustrates this through the lens of the wage. The book develops a legal genealogy that explores the shifting portfolio of concepts through which the wage has been conceptualized in legal discourse as capitalism has developed. This exploration spans from the Norman Conquest to the present day, and covers diverse issues such as the decasualization of the docks, sweated labour, the truck system, tax-credits, tips, and minimum wages. Labour and the Wage provides one of the most in-depth and comprehensive analyses of the wage to date, while, at the same time, shedding new light on the contradictory role, or function, of labour law in the context of capitalism.