"Markets, it seems, are being deconstructed and reconstructed on all sides. Seen no longer as autonomous spheres, nor even autonomous in the inner logic of how they work, markets are now located in a series of embeddings and interactional patterns. In this forefront volume, today's leading sociologists range across history from Renaissance banking to property in contemporary China, across businesses from organ transplants to global finances, across institutions from political and legal controls to the inner networks of market actors. Here the sociology of market economies is on display at its best."
-RANDALL COLLINS, professor of sociology, University of Pennsylvania

"The Sociology of the Economy contains studies that show the rich vibrancy and broad eclecticism of economic sociology. These papers illustrate clearly that economic action is always dependent on and shaped by social and political action."
-NEIL FLIGSTEIN, Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

"An important contribution to the 'new economic sociology' that brings together a diverse sampling of current research, thus providing the reader with a glimpse of what is going on at the cutting edge. This collection effectively shows work in economic sociology overlaps with work in other sociological subfields, including sociology of law, comparative and historical sociology, the sociology of organizations, and the sociology of culture. It will undoubtedly find a place on many bookshelves alongside the Handbook of Economic Sociology."
-SARAH BABB, assistant professor of sociology, Boston College

The new economic sociology is based on the theory that patterns of economic behavior are shaped by social factors. The Sociology of the Economy brings together a dozen path-breaking empirical studies that explore how social forces—such as shifts in political power, the influence of social networks, or the spread of new economic ideas—shape real-world economic behavior.

The contributors—all leading economic sociologists—show these social forces at work in a diverse range of international settings and historical circumstances. Examining why so many American banks followed industry leaders into foreign markets in the 1970s, only to pull back within a few years, Mark Mizruchi and Gerald Davis suggest that social emulation rather than rational calculation led banks to expand globally before there was any evidence that foreign offices paid off. William Schneper and Mauro Guillé show that despite the international diffusion of the hostile takeover during the last twenty years, the practice became widespread only in countries with political institutions conducive to buying and selling entire companies. Thus during the 1990s, the United States and United Kingdom saw hundreds of hostile takeover bids, while Germany had only a handful, and Japan just one. Deborah Davis explores resistance to the globalization of Western ideas about real-estate ownership—particularly in China where the government has had little success in instituting a market system in place of traditional, family-based real-estate inheritance. And Richard Scott examines the controversial rise of managed care in the American healthcare system, as the quest for market efficiency collided with the ideal of equity in access to health care.

Together, these studies provide compelling evidence that economic behavior is not ruled by immutable laws, and is but one realm of social behavior, with its own conventions, roles, and social structures. The Sociology of the Economy demonstrates the vitality of empirical research in the field of economic sociology and the power of sociological models in explaining how markets operate.

FRANK DOBBIN is professor of sociology at Harvard University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Urs Bruegger, Karin Knorr Cetina, Deborah S. Davis, Gerald F. Davis, Bai Gao, Mauro F. Guillen, Heather A. Haveman, Kieran Healy, Lisa A. Keister, Paul D. McLean, Mark S. Mizruchi, John F. Padgett, Charles Perrow, William D. Schneper, W. Richard Scott, Richard Swedberg. 

“A central problem in economics, psychology, and sociology is the problem of trust. Trust is also the central problem of e-commerce. eTrust brings together social psychologists and communications scholars to capitalize on this insight and address the problem of trust in online settings with a combination of experimental methods and analyses of data from actual online systems (in some cases combining the two in innovative ways). The results illuminate our understanding of trust as a general phenomenon at the same time they cast new light upon e-commerce and bring valuable theoretical tools to students of the Internet.”
—PAUL DIMAGGIO, professor of sociology, Princeton University 

“Karen Cook and her coeditors have brought together a distinguished, international group of scholars to address a crucial issue of contemporary times: how do individuals form trusting relationships when using the Internet? This is an important and readable set of studies that build and extend prior work on trust based on face-to-face relationships.”
—ELINOR OSTROM, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Indiana University

There is one thing that moves online consumers to click “add to cart,” that allows sellers to accept certain forms of online payment, and that makes online product reviews meaningful: trust. Without trust, online interactions can’t advance. But how is trust among strangers established on the Internet? What role does reputation play in the formation of online trust? In eTrust, editors Karen Cook, Chris Snijders, Vincent Buskens, and Coye Cheshire explore the unmapped territory where trust, reputation, and online relationships intersect, with major implications for online commerce and social networking.

eTrust uses experimental studies and field research to examine how trust in anonymous online exchanges can create or diminish cooperation between people. The first part of the volume looks at how feedback affects online auctions using trust experiments. Gary Bolton and Axel Ockenfels find that the availability of feedback leads to more trust among one-time buyers, while Davide Barrera and Vincent Buskens demonstrate that, in investment transactions, the buyer’s own experience guides decision making about future transactions with sellers. The field studies in Part II of the book examine the degree to which reputation facilitates trust in online exchanges. Andreas Diekmann, Ben Jann, and David Wyder identify a “reputation premium” in mobile phone auctions, which not only drives future transactions between buyers and sellers but also payment modes and starting bids. Chris Snijders and Jeroen Weesie shift focus to the market for online programmers, where tough competition among programmers allows buyers to shop around. The book’s third section reveals how the quality and quantity of available information influences actual marketplace participants. Sonja Utz finds that even when unforeseen accidents hinder transactions—lost packages, computer crashes—the seller is still less likely to overcome repercussions from the negative feedback of dissatisfied buyers.

So much of our lives are becoming enmeshed with the Internet, where ordinary social cues and reputational networks that support trust in the real world simply don’t apply. eTrust breaks new ground by articulating the conditions under which trust can evolve and grow online, providing both theoretical and practical insights for anyone interested in how online relationships influence our decisions.

KAREN S. COOK is Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology and the current chair of the sociology department at Stanford University.

CHRIS SNIJDERS is professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

VINCENT BUSKENS is associate professor in the Department of Sociology/ICS at Utrecht University.

COYE CHESHIRE is assistant professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

CONTRIBUTORS: Vincent Buskens, Coye Cheshire, Karen S. Cook, Chris Snijders, Judd Antin, Brandy Aven, Davide Barrera, Gary E. Bolton, Andreas Diekmann, Alexandra Gerbasi, Ben Jann, Tapan Khopkar, Azi Lev-On, Masafumi Matsuda, Uwe Matzat, Axel Ockenfels, Paul Resnick, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Yukihiro Usui, Sonja Utz, Jeroen Weesie, David Wyder, Toshio Yamagishi, and Noriaki Yoshikai.


A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

"This is an important and timely volume. Robert Cherry and William M. Rodgers III assembled an outstanding group of social scientist to examine the impact of the economic boom on African Americans. The careful and detailed analyses of the employment and earnings of African Americans in a tight labor market will be widely cited and discussed. Indeed, Prosperity for All? will undoubtedly become a standard reference for those who seek authoritative works on the economic prospects of black Americans."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Harvard University

"To what extent do the tight labor markets of the late 1990s improve the employment and earnings of African Americans and other disadvantaged groups? How much of the deterioration in their employment prospects that occurred during the previous two decades is being reversed, and will these gains persist over time? Do discriminatory attitudes and behaviors among employers also persist, and to what extent do they diminish in tight markets? These are among the questions addressed in the set of papers edited by Robert Cherry and William M. Rodgers III. The editors should be commended for bringing together a distinguished group of researchers, and for generating a volume that addresses such important and timely questions in a convincing fashion."
-HARRY J. HOLZER, Michigan State University

"As Prosperity For All? goes to press, the rules of the new economy are being rewritten. This book offers powerful new evidence that at least one important rule from the old economy still applies: Sustained economic growth conveys substantial benefits for society's most vulnerable workers."
-ALAN KRUEGER, Princeton University

With the nation enjoying a remarkable long and robust economic expansion, AfricanAmerican employment has risen to an all-time high. Does this good news refute the notion of a permanently disadvantaged black underclass, or has one type of disadvantage been replaced by another? Some economists fear that many newly employed minority workers will remain stuck in low-wage jobs, barred from better-paying, high skill jobs by their lack of educational opportunities and entrenched racial discrimination. Prosperity for All? draws upon the research and insights of respected economists to address these important issues.

Prosperity for All? reveals that while African Americans benefit in many ways from a strong job market, serious problems remain. Research presented in this book shows that the ratio of black to white unemployment has actually increased over recent expansions. Even though African American men are currently less likely to leave the workforce, the number of those who do not find work at all has grown substantially, indicating that joblessness is now concentrated among the most alienated members of the population. Other chapters offer striking evidence that racial inequality is still pervasive. Among men, black high school dropouts have more difficulty finding work than their Latino or white counterparts. Likewise, the glass ceiling that limits minority access to higher paying promotions persists even in a strong economy. Prosperity for All? ascribes black disadvantage in the labor force to employer discrimination, particularly when there is strong competition for jobs. As one study illustrates, economic upswings do not appear to change racial preferences among employers, who remain less willing to hire African Americans for more skilled low-wage jobs.

Prosperity for All? offers a timely investigation into the impact of strong labor markets on low-skill African-American workers, with important insights into the issues engendered by the weakening of federal assistance, job training, and affirmative action programs.

ROBERT CHERRY is professor of economics at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

WILLIAM M. RODGERS III is chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor. He is on leave from the College of William and Mary where he is the Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Associate Professor of Economics.

CONTRIBUTORS: Heather Boushey, Cecilia Conrad, Mary Corcoran, Sandra Danziger, Sheldon Danziger, William Darity Jr., Gregory E. DeFreitas,  Richard B. Freeman,  Colleen Heflin,  Joyce P. Jacobsen,  Chinhui Juhn,  Ariel Kalil,  Sanders Korenman, Laurence M. Levin,  Judith Levine, Philip Moss, Samuell L. Meyers Jr., Cordelia W. Reimers,  Daniel Rosen,  Kristin Seefeldt,  Kristine Siefert,  William E. Spriggs,  Chris Tilly,  Richard Tolman,  Rhonda M. Williams.  

"For those who think that low-wage workers are just 'unskilled' workers who somehow deserve their fates, Low-Wage Work in France is a must read, in that it shows how their fates vary across sectors within a given country (France) and across countries, within Europe or across the Atlantic."
-DANIEL COHEN, professor, École Normale Supérieure and Paris School of Economics, and director, CEPREMAP

"France has replaced Sweden as the quintessential example of the over-regulated, bloated welfare state that strangles the market economy, producing inefficient workplaces, and undermines incentives to work. As in the case of Sweden, the reality is much more complicated. With a comprehensive overview chapter and five case studies of narrowly framed jobs in different sectors, Eve Caroli and the contributors to this volume show that a high minimum wage has successfully limited the incidence of low wages, but that there has been a growing intensification of work, a development that challenges this orthodox view. Anyone who cares about understanding the real nature of low wage work in France must read this excellent book."
-DAVID R. HOWELL, professor of economics, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy

"Low-Wage Work in France will surely take its place among the Russell Sage Foundation's landmark studies of low paid work in the United States and Europe. A team of distinguished labor economists and sociologists highlights the harsh nature of low-wage work in France, the intensity of its work rhythms and its insecurity. The causes, they argue, often lie in a mix of intense competition in the product markets of these sectors, combined with monopsony power in their labor markets. The institutional structure of French labor markets in conjunction with the employment systems operated by private and public sector organizations shape the incidence of low-wage work, and help explain the specificity of the French case compared with other countries. This work will prove invaluable to all who wish to understand the causes of low-wage employment, and to develop policies to alleviate its consequences for the workers concerned."
-DAVID MARSDEN, professor of industrial relations, London School of Economics

In France, low wages have historically inspired tremendous political controversy. The social and political issues at stake center on integrating the working class into society and maintaining the stability of the republican regime. A variety of federal policies—including high minimum wages and strong employee protection—serve to ensure that the low-wage workforce stays relatively small. Low-Wage Work in France examines both the benefits and drawbacks of this politically inspired system of worker protection. France’s high minimum wage, which is indexed not only to inflation but also to the average increase in employee wages, plays a critical role in limiting the development of low-paid work. Social welfare benefits and a mandatory thirty-five hour work week also make life easier for low-wage workers. Strong employee protection is a central characteristic of the French model, but high levels of protection for employees may also be one of the causes of France’s chronically high rate of unemployment. The threat of long-term unemployment may, in turn, contribute to a persistent sense of insecurity among French workers. Low-Wage Work in France provides a lucid analysis of how a highly regulated labor market shapes the experiences of workers—for better and for worse.

ÈVE CAROLI is professor of economics at University Paris X.

JÉRÔME GAUTIÉ is professor of economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

CONTRIBUTORS: Anne Marie Arborio, Philippe Askenazy, Mathieu Beraud, Jean-Baptiste Berry, Jacques Bouteiller, Lise Causse, Thierry Colin, Emilie Feriel, Benoit Grasser, Christine Guegnard, Annie Lamenthe, Philippe Mehaut, Sylvie-Anne Meriot, Philippe Mosse, Sophie Prunier-Poulmaire, Robert Solow.

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

Considers how Americans define the quality of their life experiences, as expressed in their perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. Based on research conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the book uses data which are representative of the national population eighteen years of age and older, and employs the major social characteristics of class, age, education, and income. The authors cover such topics as the residential environment, the experience of work, marriage, and family life, and personal resources and competence. They also report on the situation of women and the quality of the life experience of black people.

ANGUS CAMPBELL is professor of psychology and sociology and director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

PHILIP E. CONVERSE is Robert C. Angell Professor of Political Science and Sociology and program director of the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

WILLARD L. RODGERS is senior study director of the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan.

Now available in paperback, this provocative study examines the street-level decisions made by police, caught between a sometimes hostile community and a maze of departmental regulations. Probing the dynamics of three sample police departments, Brown reveals the factors that shape how officers wield their powers of discretion. Chief among these factors, he contends, is the highly bureaucratic organization of the modern police department.

A new epilogue, prepared for this edition, focuses on the structure and operation of urban police forces in the 1980s.

"Add this book to the short list of important analyses of the police at work....Places the difficult job of policing firmly within its political, organizational, and professional constraints...Worth reading and thinking about." —Crime & Delinquency

"An excellent contribution...Adds significantly to our understanding of contemporary police." —Sociology

"A critical analysis of policing as a social and political phenomenon....A major contribution." —Choice

MICHAEL K. BROWN is emeritus professor of politics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Winner of the 2000 James S. Coleman Best Book Award from the Rational Choice Section of the American Sociological Association

Institutions play a pivotal role in the economic functioning of any society. Understanding the foundation of social norms, networks, and beliefs within institutions is crucial to explaining much of what occurs in modern economies. Recently, economic sociologists have explored how ties among individuals and groups facilitate economic activity, while "institutional economists" have focused on the formal "rules of the game" that regulate economic processes via government and law. The New Institutionalism in Sociology argues that a full understanding of economic life will depend on blending these new lines of research on institutions with traditional sociological insights into the social structures that lie at their core.

The contributors to this volume explore many questions about the way institutions emerge and operate. How do grassroots mores and practices evolve to an institutional level? How do institutional norms then regulate economic activity, and what are the advantages of formal versus informal constraints? What are the sources of trust and cooperation in trading markets? What role do cultural networks play in the economic survival of immigrant communities? And how does conflict and bargaining affect the evolution of community norms?

The New Institutionalism in Sociology also discusses how economic fluctuations arise from interactions between local agencies and the institutional environment. Among the topics addressed here are the influence of labor activism on the distribution of income, the association between highly competitive "winner-take-all" job markets and increased wage inequality in the United States, and the effect of property right conventions on technical innovation and productivity in pre-industrial England. A final section explores how deeply embedded cultural traditions have colored the transition from state socialism to market economies in Eastern Europe.

The New Institutionalism in Sociology establishes a valuable template for a sociological conception of economic organization. Its interdisciplinary paradigm signals an important advance in understanding how institutions shape social and economic life.

MARY C. BRINTON is associate professor of sociology at the University of Chicago.

VICTOR NEE is Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology at Cornell University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert C. Ellickson, Jean Ensminger, Robert Feenstra, Robert H. Frank, Avner Greif, Gary G. Hamilton, Rosemary L. Hopcroft, Paul Ingram, Takehiko Kariya, Jack Knight, Eric Kostello, Douglas C. North, Alejandro Portes, Julia Sensenbrenner, Ivan Szelenyi, Bruce Western. 

"John Brehm and Scott Gates are two of the only political scientists working today who actually take an interest in how government organizations work and how to improve their performance. They also bring enormous talent and empirical sophistication to their efforts. The result in Teaching, Tasks, and Trust is a delight to read-good social science that addresses practical questions of the performance of government organizations."
-STEVE KELMAN, Albert J. Weatherhead III and Richard W. Weatherhead Professor of Public Management, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

"The dominant paradigm in the study of bureaucracy holds that the manager's job is to design incentives to shape the self-interested response of subordinates. Swimming against the tide, John Brehm and Scott Gates show that there is a lot more to it than that. Teaching, Tasks, and Trust demonstrates that there are a number of subtle but fundamental tasks that are key to successful management, including 'providing political cover' for subordinates in order to build trust. These are lessons that should (but probably won't) change the way management is taught in business or public policy schools."
-GARY MILLER, professor of political science, Washington University in St. Louis

The mere word “bureaucracy” brings to mind images of endless lines, piles of paperwork, and frustrating battles over rules and red tape. But some bureaucracies are clearly more efficient and responsive than others. Why? In Teaching, Tasks, and Trust, distinguished political scientists John Brehm and Scott Gates show that a good part of the answer may be found in the roles that middle managers play in teaching and supporting the front-line employees who make a bureaucracy work.

Brehm and Gates employ a range of sophisticated modeling and statistical methods in their analysis of employees in federal agencies, police departments, and social service centers. Looking directly at what front-line workers say about their supervisors, they find that employees who feel they have received adequate training have a clearer understanding of the agency’s mission, which leads to improved efficiency within their departments. Quality training translates to trust – employees who feel supported and well-trained for the job are more likely to trust their supervisors than those who report being subject to constant monitoring and a strict hierarchy. Managers who “stand up” for employees—to media, government, and other agency officials—are particularly effective in cultivating the trust of their workers. And trust, the authors find, motivates superior job performance and commitment to the agency’s mission. Employees who trust their supervisors report that they work harder, put in longer hours, and are less likely to break rules. The authors extend these findings to show that once supervisors grain trust, they enjoy greater latitude in influencing how employees allocate their time while working.

Brehm and Gates show how these three executive roles are interrelated—training and protection for employees gives rise to trust, which provides supervisors with the leverage to stimulate improved performance among their workers. This new model—which frames supervisors as teachers and protectors instead of taskmasters—has widespread implications for training a new generation of leaders and creating more efficient organizations.

Bureaucracies are notorious for inefficiency, but mid-level supervisors, who are often regarded as powerless, retain tremendous power to build a more productive workforce. Teaching, Tasks, and Trust provides a fascinating glimpse into a bureaucratic world operating below the radar of the public eye—a world we rarely see while waiting in line or filling out paperwork.

JOHN BREHM is professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

SCOTT GATES is research professor at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

"Low-Wage Work in Germany is a valuable addition to knowledge on recent changes in German labor markets. It not only documents the extent and growth of low-wage work, but also offers well researched explanations for these developments in terms of changes in industrial systems and corporate governance, the fragmentation of work, and the weakening of collective agreements. This analysis is of interest in all industrialized countries. It also offers an important scientific contribution to the current debate in Germany on minimum wage policy."
-GERRY RODGERS, International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva

"The German social model was praised for many decades because of its low level of social exclusion. Now low-wage work nearly reaches the high level of the United States. The brilliant analysis of Gerhard Bosch, Claudia Weinkopf, and their coauthors helps us understand the dramatic changes of the German social model after the unification. What happens in the strongest European economy is decisive for the European Social model. Therefore, Low-Wage Work in Germany is a must-read for policymakers, analysts, and researchers interested in Europe and the future of the welfare state."
-REINER HOFFMANN, European Trade Union Confederation

"This book challenges our understanding of the German social market economy by expertly documenting the incidence and implications of low-wage work in Germany. Combining labor market analysis with industry case studies, the authors provide a detailed and comprehensive treatment of low-wage work across key occupations. The surprising finding that the share of low-wage work in Germany has reached a level nearly as high as the United States and the United Kingdom makes Low-Wage Work in Germany essential reading for those interested in the German economy."
-PETER BERG, Michigan State University

In recent years, the German government has intentionally expanded the low-wage work sector in an effort to reduce exceptionally high levels of unemployment. As a result, the share of the German workforce employed in low-paying jobs now rivals that of the United States. Low Wage Work in Germany examines both the federal policies and changing economic conditions that have driven this increase in low-wage work. The new “mini-job” reflects the federal government’s attempt to make certain low-paying jobs attractive to both employers and employees. Employers pay a low flat rate for benefits, and employees, who work a limited number of hours per week, are exempt from social security and tax contributions. Other factors, including slow economic growth, a declining collective bargaining system, and the influx of foreign workers, also contribute to the growing incidence of low-wage work. Yet while both Germany and the United States have large shares of low-wage workers, German workers receive health insurance, four weeks of paid vacation, and generous old age support—benefits most low-wage workers in the United States can only dream of. The German experience offers an important opportunity to explore difficult trade-offs between unemployment and low-wage work.

GERHARD BOSCH is professor of sociology at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

CLAUDIA WEINKOPF is deputy director of the Institute for Work, Skills, and Training at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

CONTRIBUTORS: Lars Czommer, Karen Jaehrling, Thorsten Kalina, Robert Solow, Achim Vanselow, Dorothea Voss-Dahm.

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

Why do consumer prices and wages adjust so slowly to changes in market conditions? The rigidity or stickiness of price setting in business is central to Keynesian economic theory and a key to understanding how monetary policy works, yet economists have made little headway in determining why it occurs. Asking About Prices offers a groundbreaking empirical approach to a puzzle for which theories abound but facts are scarce. Leading economist Alan Blinder, along with co-authors Elie Canetti, David Lebow, and Jeremy B. Rudd, interviewed a national, multi-industry sample of 200 CEOs, company heads, and other corporate price setters to test the validity of twelve prominent theories of price stickiness. Using everyday language and pertinent scenarios, the carefully designed survey asked decisionmakers how prominently these theoretical concerns entered into their own attitudes and thought processes. Do businesses tend to view the costs of changing prices as prohibitive? Do they worry that lower prices will be equated with poorer quality goods? Are firms more likely to try alternate strategies to changing prices, such as warehousing excess inventory or improving their quality of service? To what extent are prices held in place by contractual agreements, or by invisible handshakes?

Asking About Prices offers a gold mine of previously unavailable information. It affirms the widespread presence of price stickiness in American industry, and offers the only available guide to such business details as what fraction of goods are sold by fixed price contract, how often transactions involve repeat customers, and how and when firms review their prices. Some results are surprising: contrary to popular wisdom, prices do not increase more easily than they decrease, and firms do not appear to practice anticipatory pricing, even when they can foresee cost increases. Asking About Prices also offers a chapter-by-chapter review of the survey findings for each of the twelve theories of price stickiness. The authors determine which theories are most popular with actual price setters, how practices vary within different business sectors, across firms of different sizes, and so on. They also direct economists' attention toward a rationale for price stickiness that does not stem from conventional theory, namely a strong reluctance by firms to antagonize or inconvenience their customers. By illuminating how company executives actually think about price setting, Asking About Prices provides an elegant model of a valuable new approach to conducting economic research.

ALAN S. BLINDER is Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1971. He also founded and directs Princeton’s Center for Economic Policy Studies. He has served as vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and as a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.

ELIE R. D. CANETTI is an economist for the International Monetary Fund. He previously worked at the World Bank and the United States Treasury.

DAVID E. LEBOW is an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

JEREMY B. RUDD is senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers, Washington, D.C.