Is there one best way to run the modern business corporation? What is the appropriate balance between shareholders, executives, and employees? These questions are being vigorously debated as layoffs, scandals, and restructurings rattle companies around the world. The common assumption is that globalization is merging the varieties of corporate capitalism. Yet, as this book shows, corporations in Japan and the United States are responding differently to the pressures unleashed by globalization. In The Embedded Corporation, Sanford Jacoby traces this diversity to national differences in economic history and social norms, and, paradoxically, to global competition itself. The book's vantage point for exploring the varieties of capitalism is the human resource departments of large corporations, where changes in markets and technology turn into corporate labor policies affecting millions of workers. Despite some cross-fertilization, Japanese and American corporations maintain distinctive approaches to human resource management, which has important consequences for how firms compete, for corporate governance, and even for the level of inequality in Japan and the United States. The Embedded Corporation is a major contribution to our understanding of comparative management and the relationship between business, society, and the global economy. Sanford M. Jacoby is the Howard Noble Professor of Management, Public Policy, and History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In this important new book, Bob Jessop offers a radical new interpretation of capitalist states and their likely future development. He focuses on the changing forms, functions, scales and effectiveness of economic and social policy that have emerged since the 1950s in advanced western capitalist states.The postwar Keynesian welfare national state that developed in most advanced capitalist societies has long been regarded as being in crisis. Mounting tensions have been generated by technological change, globalization, and economic and political crises, and new social and political movements have also had a destabilizing impact. Jessop examines these factors in relation to the rise, consolidation and crisis of Atlantic Fordism and asks whether a new type of capitalist state that is currently emerging offers a solution. He notes that there are several difficulties still to be overcome before the new type of state is consolidated; in particular, he is critical of its neoliberal form and considers its main alternatives.This book will have broad cross-disciplinary appeal. It will be read by sociologists, political scientists, institutional economists, geographers and students of social policy.

Ailish Johnson examines national welfare state regimes of EU Member States and the features of the European Union and the International Labour Organization that encourage cooperation and assure outcomes of supranational cooperation higher than theories of inter-state bargaining or social dumping would predict. By tracing the development of EU and global social policy from the 1950s to today, she identifies policy leaders, resisters and passive states. She concludes with an analysis of the forms and outputs of supranational social policy and suggests limits of social policy in an enlarged European Union.

Development Models, Globalization and Economies compares and critiques the different economic models available in today's global market place. The US or Anglo-Saxon model is often portrayed as the best, yet Europe has a well-known Social Model, and Asia has enjoyed success in the past wherein the 'Asian Economic Miracle' was highly vaunted before their crash. But now Asia, especially China, is again on a roll. The book analyzes how these models have influenced both regional and global development, and finally engages in discussions upon alternatives and the search for the 'grail'.

In the early 1980s, many observers, argued that powerful organized economic interests and social democratic parties created successful mixed economies promoting economic growth, full employment, and a modicum of social equality. The present book assembles scholars with formidable expertise in the study of advanced capitalist politics and political economy to reexamine this account from the vantage point of the second half of the 1990s. The authors find that the conventional wisdom no longer adequately reflects the political and economic realities. Advanced democracies have responded in path-dependent fashion to such novel challenges as technological change, intensifying international competition, new social conflict, and the erosion of established patterns of political mobilization. The book rejects, however, the currently widespread expectation that ‘internationalization’ makes all democracies converge on similar political and economic institutions and power relations. Diversity among capitalist democracies persists, though in a different fashion than in the ‘Golden Age’ of rapid economic growth after World War II.

German Ordoliberalism and French Regulation theory, two institutionalist theories born in different national contexts, show striking convergences and complementarities. Based on an original comparison, Institutional Economics in France and Germany analyses the basic concepts, the development and the present relevance of both schools, the way they deal with the crucial methodological issue of complexity and with transformation in post-socialist Europe. It underlines the specificity and fruitfulness of these European approaches to institutional economics, often unfortunately ignored in the English-language literature. Written by leading scholars, this book is a clear presentation of both theories, with numerous illustrations and in-depth analysis of recent research developments. This theoretical, methodological and thematic comparison raises central issues in the growing field of socioeconomic and institutionalist theory.

This book considers several aspects of the transformation of the former state socialist countries: social and economic outcomes; forces in the transformation process; problems of consolidation of the new regimes; and alternative scenarios. The book evaluates the course of transformation of state socialist societies. It focuses on economic change and its impact on inequality and health. Comparisons are made between the successful central European countries now members of the European Union with those of the former Soviet Union. There are detailed studies of the transformation of the (former) German Democratic Republic, Czech Republic, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, as well as the impact on Poland. A feature of the book is the impact of the collapse of state socialism on countries of Asia and the Third World. Alternative scenarios are considered, with specific chapters on China, Cuba, and North Korea. The book contemplates the alternative types of society that might replace state socialism, particularly state capitalism and market socialism.

Co-winner of the 2006 Schumpeter Prize of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society. This book explains the shift of the organizational landscape away from vertically integrated firms and towards more specialized entities connected by markets and networks. In doing so, it places in a larger theoretical framework the work of Joseph Schumpeter and Alfred Chandler, two of the twentieth century's most important analysts of the modern corporation. Weaving together business history, economic theory and the history of ideas, Langlois - who won the Newcomen Award in 1992 - sorts through the competing understanding of the rise and (relative) eclipse of the multi-unit enterprise. Rather than rejecting the accounts of Schumpeter and Chandler, he offers his own nuanced and historically grounded account of the rise and success of the corporation and its subsequent unbundling. Topical and timely, Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism is a useful resource for postgraduates and academics interested in the economics of organization, business history, economic sociology, and the history of economic thought, as well as to the general reader interested in the place of the corporation in the new economy.

Известнейший французский медиевист рассматривает Средние века, прежде всего, с точки зрения складывания европейской идентичности. Именно в эту эпоху, которая заслуживает самого пристального к себе отношения, сформировались основные черты знакомой нам Европы. Само понятие "Европа" встречается уже в документах VII века, а первая попытка ее объединения восходит к следующему столетию. Далее, на протяжении всего Средневековья, складывались отличительные особенности Европы как особой социокультурной общности объединенной христианскими ценностями, и возникали первые ростки общеевропейского самосознания.

Один из самых авторитетных историков XX века, Жак Ле Гофф рассматривает средневековый Запад в заданных им параметрах пространства-времени, материальной культуры и социальной иерархии, открывающих нам как человека Средневековья в его повседневности и в его ментальности, так и особенности духовной культуры людей в Средние века. Книга, ставшая классической работой о Средних веках, впервые издается вместе с оригинальным "Справочным индексом" - авторским комментарием основных понятий и персоналий эпохи.

This book seeks to identify the forces which explain how and why some parts of the world have grown rich and others have lagged behind. Encompassing 2000 years of history, part 1 begins with the Roman Empire and explores the key factors that have influenced economic development in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Part 2 covers the development of macroeconomic tools of analysis from the 17th century to the present. Part 3 looks to the future and considers what the shape of the world economy might be in 2030. Combining both the close quantitative analysis for which Professor Maddison is famous with a more qualitative approach that takes into account the complexity of the forces at work, this book provides students and all interested readers with a totally fascinating overview of world economic history. Professor Maddison has the unique ability to synthesise vast amounts of information into a clear narrative flow that entertains as well as informs, making this text an invaluable resource for all students and scholars, and anyone interested in trying to understand why some parts of the World are so much richer than others.

In this study, Angus Maddison explores the causes of the West’s economic growth over the last 2,000 years and contrasts it with the economic history of the rest of the world. Maddison explores the impact of Western conquest on the Americas and analyzes the indigenous and external forces that hindered advance in Asia and Africa. He debunks the notion that the Western ascension originated in the industrial revolution in England in the late eighteenth century. His unique analysis suggests that Western Europe overtook Chinese levels of per-capita income in the fourteenth century, in sharp contrast to the prevailing scholarship asserting that China was ahead of Europe until 1800. Growth and Interaction in the World Economy provides guidance on the broad contours of development, which complements qualitative analysis that, on its own, cannot clearly identify the timing and scope of economic changes.

The book analyses changes in world income and population over the past two millennia in a comprehensive way, identifies the forces which explain the success of the rich countries, explores the obstacles which hindered advance in regions and countries which lagged behind, and scrutinises the interaction between the rich countries and the rest. As with my earlier books, the causal analysis is supported by an extensive framework of macroeconomic statistics.

Written by the distinguished economic historian, Angus Maddison, the book offers a rare insight into the history and political influence of national accounts and national accounting. Packed with over 150 tables, boxes and figures, this book pulls together an incredible array of hard-to-find facts both large and small. These are just a random sample: Annual Change of World GDP, IMF and Maddison Measures, 1970-2001; World Gold Output by Major Region, 1493-1925; Slave Exports from Black Africa, 650-1900, by Destination; Population of 12 West European Countries, 1500-2003; Per Capita GDP in Western Offshoots (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States), 1500-2001. The World Economy: Historical Statistics is a "must" for all scholars and students of economics and economic history, while the casual reader will find much of fascinating interest. It is also a monumental work of reference. It is the sequel to the author's best-selling The World Economy: a Millennial Perspective, published by the OECD Development Centre in 2001.

This book systematically investigates the past accomplishments and future agendas of contemporary comparative-historical analysis. Its core essays explore three major issues: the accumulation of knowledge in the field over the past three decades, the analytic tools used to study temporal process and historical patterns, and the methodologies available for making inferences and for building theories. The introductory and concluding essays situate the field as a whole by comparing it to alternative approaches within the social sciences. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences will serve as an invaluable resource for scholars in the field, and it will represent a challenge to many other social scientists - especially those who have raised skeptical concerns about comparative-historical analysis in the past.