Journal of Economic Issues articles from September 1998

Journal of Economic Issues archives from September 1998

Are African-Americans losing their footholds in better jobs?
September 1, 1998... The years from the early 1970s through the early 1990s were tough ones for most American workers. Unemployment rates rose above 6 percent of the civilian labor force during only two of the years between 1954 and 1974 but fell below 6 percent for...

Strategic bankruptcy and private pension default.
September 1, 1998... A rapidly growing literature focuses on potential problems for both private pension plans and the Social Security system. Almost all of the literature addressing private sector pensions assumes that the firm promising to pay the pension has the...

Veblen's assault on time. (economist Thorstein Veblen)
September 1, 1998... A large body of work examines Thorstein Veblen's conception of time; in particular, economists and historians continue to debate the usefulness and consistency of the evolutionary underpinning of his work. 1 What Veblen refers to as his...

Caroline Foley and the theory of intersubjective demand. (economist)
September 1, 1998... The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. - William Shakespeare The bridging of the atomist/holist divide in the social sciences, and in economics especially, heads many contemporary research agendas. Of such projects under way, none...

What Veblen owed to Peirce - the social theory of logic. (economist Thorstein Veblen, logician Charles S. Peirce)
September 1, 1998... In fall 1881, Thorstein Veblen studied with Charles S. Peirce, a logician with whose philosophy he is thought to have shared much. The graduate seminar, "Elementary Logic," was actually a favorite offering of Peirce. Veblen found himself...

Ending corporate welfare as we know it: an institutional analysis of the dual structure of welfare.
September 1, 1998... In 1996, after years of debate and the accumulation of a vast literature on poverty, economic dependency, and family structure, the U.S. government voted to "end welfare as we know it." The federal government officially withdrew the entitlement...

Exploring the politics of the minimum wage.
September 1, 1998... For the most part, since its inception in 1938, the minimum wage has hovered at around 50 percent of average annual hourly wages for product,on and non-supervisory workers. Between 1981 and 1989, the minimum wage fell below 40 percent, and it...

Rise of the institutional equity funds: implications for managerialism.
September 1, 1998... There is no such thing as an innocent stockholder. - Louis Brandeis, 1935 Two salient features of fin de siecle economy in the United States and Western Europe are (1) the hollowing out of social relations between major corporations, their...

Comment on "postmodernism and institutionalism." (response to Roland Hoksbergen, 'Journal of Economic Issues,' vol. 28, no. 3, p. 679)
September 1, 1998... In this comment, I do two things: First, make some points of perspective (not correction); and second, extend the analysis Hoksbergen [1994] conducted. Both should help to moderate the tensions he has identified and to contribute to the...

Is postmodern institutionalism the wave of the future? A reply to Hoksbergen. (response to Roland Hoksbergen, 'Journal of Economic Issues,' vol. 28, no. 3, p. 679)
September 1, 1998... The basic premise of Roland Hoksbergen's [1994] article on the future of institutionalism is that postmodernism has become the wave of the future, having bested "foundationalism."(1) There are many things in Hoksbergen's piece with which...

Postmodernism and institutionalism: a reply to Klein and Samuels. (response to Philip A. Klein and Warren J. Samuels, in this issue, pp. 823 and 833)
September 1, 1998... It is a great honor to have well-regarded institutionalists like Philip Klein and Warren Samuels respond to my thoughts on postmodernism and institutionalism, just as it is an honor to be able to reply to them. One of the points I made in my...

Technological progressivism: guilty as charged. (response to William M. Dugger and Howard J. Sherman, 'Journal of Economic Issues,' vol. 31, no. 4)
September 1, 1998... Anti-technology institutionalism has always seemed to me to be an oxymoron whose emergence in recent decades has been a source of amazement and dismay. And Marxists masquerading as institutionalists would seem to be a pointless endeavor. The...

Institutionalism without institutions: rejoinder to DeGregori. (response to Thomas R. DeGregory, in this issue, p. 848)
September 1, 1998... We have a narrow bridge of common ground between some of our views and those of Thomas R. DeGregori, but on most issues there is a deep abyss between us. The Bridge and the Abyss First, let us examine the bridge of common ground between us....

The Economy as a Process of Valuation.
September 1, 1998... By Warren J. Samuels, Steven G. Medema, and A. Allan Schmid. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. Pp. xvi, 331. $85.00. Any fresh publication of Warren Samuels's scholarly work merits our serious attention. Surely few, if any, economists in this...

Worlds of Production: The Action Frameworks of the Economy.
September 1, 1998... By Michael Storper and Robert Salais. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Pp. xiv, 370. This is an important and excellent book that will be of great interest to institutional economists. In a real world integrated by...

Keynes and the Quest for a Moral Science: A Study of Economics and Alchemy.
September 1, 1998... By Wayne Parsons. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1997. Pp. xvii, 212. $70 The notion that (once) mainstream Keynesian economics really constitutes a vast misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Keynes's own views is well known and accepted....

Gender and Political Economy: Incorporating Diversity into Theory and Policy.
September 1, 1998... Edited by Ellen Mutari, Heather Boushey, and William Fraher IV. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. Pp. 260. Gender and Political Economy is an edited volume containing an interesting blend of political economy and feminist perspectives on a variety...

The Economics of Environmental Degradation: Tragedy for the Commons.
September 1, 1998... Edited by Timothy M. Swanson. Cheltenham, UK, and Brookfield, Vt.: Edward Elgar Publishing Company, 1996. Pp. xiii, 192. This volume is a work commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program and edited by Timothy Swanson of the Centre...

The Tobin Tax: Coping with Financial Volatility.
September 1, 1998... Edited by Mahbub ul Haq, Inge Kaul, and Isabelle Grunberg. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xviii, 300. $40.00 (cloth), $21.00 (paper). Foreign exchange markets have undergone dramatic structural changes since the demise of the...

Evolutionary Economics and Path Dependence.
September 1, 1998... Edited by Lars Magnusson and Jan Ottosson. Cheltenham, UK, and Brookfield, Vt.: Edward Elgar Publishing Company, 1997. Pp. 227. $70.00 This volume is a collection of papers presented at a conference held in Stockholm in 1995. There are 10...

African American and Post-Industrial Labor Markets.
September 1, 1998... Edited by James B. Stewart. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1996. Pp. x, 399. Despite the tightest labor markets in more than a generation, black unemployment rates remain double that of white rates, and large gaps between black...

Black Unemployment: Part of Unskilled Unemployment.
September 1, 1998... By David Schwartzman. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Pp. xvi, 206. Despite the tightest labor markets in more than a generation, black unemployment rates remain double that of white rates, and large gaps between black and white...

The Double Games of Participation: Pay, Performance and Culture.
September 1, 1998... By Marcel Bolle de Bal. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1993. Pp. 265. Marcel Bolle de Bal's The Double Games of Participation: Pay, Performance and Culture makes an important contribution to our understanding of pay systems and their role in...

Telecom Reform: Principles, Policies and Regulatory Practices.
September 1, 1998... Edited by William H. Melody. Lyngby: Technical University of Denmark, 1996. Pp. I, 557. Telecommunications is a broad and complex topic that is important to the well-being of each of us. Technological development and acceptance of new...

The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital and the Betrayal of Work.
September 1, 1998... By William Wolman and Anne Colamosca. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1997. Pp. xii, 240. The globalization and rapid mobility of capital in our world of abundant labor are helping the economic elite, but harming a much...

One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism.
September 1, 1998... By William Greider. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Pp. 528. The globalization and rapid mobility of capital in our world of abundant labor are helping the economic elite, but harming a much larger group of people who are not at the pinnacle...

When Corporations Rule the World.
September 1, 1998... By David C. Korten. West Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press, Inc., and San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publications, Inc., 1995. Pp. 374. The globalization and rapid mobility of capital in our world of abundant labor are helping the economic elite,...

Insurance Redlining: Disinvestment, Reinvestment, and the Evolving Role of Financial Institutions.
September 1, 1998... Edited by Gregory D. Squires. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1997. Pp. 259. $24.95 During the civil rights movement 30 years ago, the authors of the 1968 Kerner Commission report concluded that race was dividing the United States...

Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone Haywire.
September 1, 1998... By Nicols Fox. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Pp. xiv, 434. $25.00 Contrary to popular opinion, reviewers do not get a perverse pleasure from skewering a book. If the reviewer is also an author, there is a definite preference to recommend a book...

Contesting the Market: Pay Equity and the Politics of Economic Restructuring.
September 1, 1998... By Deborah M. Figart and Peggy Kahn. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997. Pp. 225. Contesting the Market: Pay Equity and the Politics of Economic Restructuring reads at times like a soap opera: will Michigan implement pay equity...

Race, Markets, and Social Outcomes.
September 1, 1998... Edited by Patrick L. Mason and Rhonda M. Williams. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. Pp. 194. $95.00 (cloth). At a time when the notion of individual responsibility is on the ascendency and support for race-based policies, such as...

Great Experiments in American Economic Policy: From Kennedy to Reagan.
September 1, 1998... By Thomas Karier. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997. Pp. 248. $59.95. As this review is being written, America's macroeconomic picture looks extremely bright: unemployment is at its lowest level in 20 years ("worker heaven" declared one widely...