While there are many economists in schools, government, unions, and non-profit organizations working in the institutionalst tradition, there has been no book that describes this tradition -- until now. Editors Champlin and Knoedler have brought together prominent labor economists, highly respected institutional economists, and newer scholars working on such compelling issues as immigration, wage discrimination, and living wages. Their essays portray the institutionalist tradition in labor as it exists today as well as its historical and theoretical origins. The result is a major contribution to the literature of labor economics, institutionalist economics, and the history of economic thought.

While there are many economists in schools, government, unions, and non-profit organizations working in the institutionalst tradition, there has been no book that describes this tradition -- until now. Editors Champlin and Knoedler have brought together prominent labor economists, highly respected institutional economists, and newer scholars working on such compelling issues as immigration, wage discrimination, and living wages. Their essays portray the institutionalist tradition in labor as it exists today as well as its historical and theoretical origins. The result is a major contribution to the literature of labor economics, institutionalist economics, and the history of economic thought.

One of the most vexing questions in contemporary political philosophy and social theory concerns the framework within which to undertake a normatively well-grounded, empirically attuned critique of capitalist society. This volume takes the debate forward by proposing a new framework that emphasizes the central anthropological significance of work (its role in constituting human subjectivity) as well as the role work has in the formation of social bonds. Drawing on the philosophy of Hegel and the post-Hegelian tradition of critical social theory, special attention is given to the significance of recognition in work, the problems of misrecognition generated in the present culture of capitalism, and the normative resources available for criticising it.

This book provides a detailed picture of the institutionalist movement in American economics concentrating on the period between the two World Wars. The discussion brings a new emphasis on the leading role of Walton Hamilton in the formation of institutionalism, on the special importance of the ideals of 'science' and 'social control' embodied within the movement, on the large and close network of individuals involved, on the educational programs and research organizations created by institutionalists and on the significant place of the movement within the mainstream of interwar American economics. In these ways the book focuses on the group most closely involved in the active promotion of the movement, on how they themselves constructed it, on its original intellectual appeal and promise and on its institutional supports and sources of funding.

Institutional economics is a sociocultural discipline and policy science which draws on the idea that economies are best understood through an appreciation of history, real-world institutions, and socioeconomic interrelations. This book brings together leading institutionalists to examine the tradition’s most essential perspectives and methods. The contributors to the book draw on a broad range of institutional thought from the classic work of Thorstein Veblen, John R. Commons, and Karl Polanyi, to the newer viewpoints of post-Keynesian institutionalism, feminist institutionalism, and environmental institutionalism. Methods range from frameworks used to analyze public policy and institutional change, to modes of analysis including myth busting, historically grounded narratives, and computer-based simulations. Each chapter surveys the origins, development, key features, applications, and frontiers of a particular viewpoint, framework, or mode of analysis. Due consideration is given to both strengths and weaknesses; and woven into the chapters is attention to core institutionalist concepts, including technology, institutions, culture, and complexity. The book provides economists with promising starting points for new research, students with contributions refreshingly in touch with the real world, and policymakers and social scientists with compelling reasons for engaging further with the institutionalist tradition.

Examines the connections between industrial relations and a variety of social science disciplines.

ÔWachter and Estlund 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.Õ Ð Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Indiana University Bloomington School of Law, US This 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 volumeÕs 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.