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Cover image of the book Marginalism and Discontinuity
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Marginalism and Discontinuity

Tools for the Crafts of Knowledge and Decision
Author
Martin H. Krieger
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Marginalism and Discontinuity is an account of the culture of models employed in the natural and social sciences, showing how such models are instruments for getting hold of the world, tools for the crafts of knowing and deciding. Like other tools, these models are interpretable cultural objects, objects that embody traditional themes of smoothness and discontinuity, exchange and incommensurability, parts and wholes.

Martin Krieger interprets the calculus and neoclassical economics, for example, as tools for adding up a smoothed world, a world of marginal changes identified by those tools. In contrast, other models suggest that economies might be sticky and ratchety or perverted and fetishistic. There are as well models that posit discontinuity or discreteness. In every city, for example, some location has been marked as distinctive and optimal; around this created differentiation, a city center and a city periphery eventually develop. Sometimes more than one model is applicable—the possibility of doom may be seen both as the consequence of a series of mundane events and as a transcendent moment. We might model big decisions or entrepreneurial endeavors as sums of several marginal decisions, or as sudden, marked transitions, changes of state like freezing or religious conversion.

Once we take models and theory as tools, we find that analogy is destiny. Our experiences make sense because of the analogies or tools used to interpret them, and our intellectual disciplines are justified and made meaningful through the employment of characteristic toolkits—a physicist's toolkit, for example, is equipped with a certain set of mathematical and rhetorical models.

Marginalism and Discontinuity offers a provocative and wide-ranging consideration of the technologies by which we attempt to apprehend the world. It will appeal to social and natural scientists, mathematicians and philosophers, and thoughtful educators, policymakers, and planners.

MARTIN H. KRIEGER is associate professor of planning at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Southern California.

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Cover image of the book Trust and Distrust in Organizations
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Trust and Distrust in Organizations

Editors
Roderick M. Kramer
Karen S. Cook
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$34.95
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6 in. × 9 in. 400 pages
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978-0-87154-486-5
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"If you thought there was little new to be said on the subject of trust, buy this book and read it. The chapters dealing with trust in hierarchies (leaders, physicians, social workers) and in networks (on-line and geographically disbursed) are especially fresh and important. All the chapters contribute to our appreciation of the pervasive importance of trust in our society and organizations."
-DAVID M. MESSICK, Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management and codirector of the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

"Trust and Distrust in Organizations is a spectacular collection of contemporary ideas on what social scientists now understand about trust, put together by two outstanding social scientists. The contributing authors are an excellent group of scholars. I valued the useful integrations of different parts of the literature. I found even greater value in the paradoxes and dilemmas that the volume resolved for the reader. This book should be read by any social scientist with a serious interest in trust. More broadly, anyone who wants some tools for understanding the recent disintegration of trust in our society would be well served by starting with a careful read of this book."
-MAX H. BAZERMAN, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

"In the last two decades the concept of trust has been seen as an important component of social life, central to understanding how social capital works. Roderick Kramer and Karen Cook, themselves important contributors to this literature, have brought together an outstanding collection of research studies and theoretical analyses that illuminate how trust is built and how it is dissipated. Focusing upon trust in organizations, they examine trust in hierarchical relationships, in teams and groups, and in a variety of organizational contexts. The papers are very well done-a state of the art collection."
-MAYER N. ZALD, professor emeritus, sociology, social work, and business administration, Northwestern University

"This rich volume brings together noted scholars from an array of social science disciplines to examine trust in an intriguing variety of organizational settings, among them doctors and patients, the White House, dispersed work teams, and the internet. The analyses stress the inherent challenges of forging and sustaining trust, offering valuable lessons about both the enduring power and inherent frailty of trusting relations."
- WALTER W. POWELL, professor of education and organizational behavior and sociology, Stanford University

The effective functioning of a democratic society—including social, business, and political interactions—largely depends on trust. Yet trust remains a fragile and elusive resource in many of the organizations that make up society's building blocks. In their timely volume, Trust and Distrust in Organizations, editors Roderick M. Kramer and Karen S. Cook have compiled the most important research on trust in organizations, illuminating the complex nature of how trust develops, functions, and often is thwarted in organizational settings. With contributions from social psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists, the volume examines trust and distrust within a variety of settings—from employer-employee and doctor-patient relationships, to geographically dispersed work teams and virtual teams on the internet.

Trust and Distrust in Organizations opens with an in-depth examination of hierarchical relationships to determine how trust is established and maintained between people with unequal power. Kurt Dirks and Daniel Skarlicki find that trust between leaders and their followers is established when people perceive a shared background or identity and interact well with their leader. After trust is established, people are willing to assume greater risks and to work harder. In part II, the contributors focus on trust between people in teams and networks. Roxanne Zolin and Pamela Hinds discover that trust is more easily established in geographically dispersed teams when they are able to meet face-to-face initially. Trust and Distrust in Organizations moves on to an examination of how people create and foster trust and of the effects of power and betrayal on trust. Kimberly Elsbach reports that managers achieve trust by demonstrating concern, maintaining open communication, and behaving consistently. The final chapter by Roderick Kramer and Dana Gavrieli includes recently declassified data from secret conversations between President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors that provide a rich window into a leader’s struggles with problems of trust and distrust in his administration.

Broad in scope, Trust and Distrust in Organizations provides a captivating and insightful look at trust, power, and betrayal, and is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the underpinnings of trust within a relationship or an organization.

RODERICK M. KRAMER is the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

KAREN S. COOK is Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology, Stanford University.

CONTRIBUTORS:  John Brehm, Robin M. Cooper, John M. Darley, Kurt T. Dirks, Amy C. Edmondson, Kimberly D. Elsbach, Scott Gates,  Dana A. Gavrieli, Pamela J. Hinds, Deepak Malhotra, Bill McEvily, Gary J. Miller, Stefanie Bailey Mollborn, J. Keith Murnighan, Helen Nissenbaum, Hakan Ozcelik, Sandra L. Robinson, Daniel P. Skarlicki, Irena Stepanikova, David H. Thom, J. Mark Weber, Akbar Zaheer, Rozanne Zolin. 

 


A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

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Cover image of the book Unveiling Inequality
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Unveiling Inequality

A World-Historical Perspective
Authors
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz
Timothy Patrick Moran
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$34.95
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Winner of the 2010 Best Book Award from the Political Economy of World Systems Section of the American Sociological Association

“‘As they develop, national economies first become more unequal and then more equal. China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, and many more will eventually catch up with western production and income standards, and will each become as equal as today’s high-income and low-inequality countries. So the distribution of income between all the world’s people will become much more equal than it is today, thanks to the growth of global markets.’ If you are inclined to believe these and related propositions—and the supporting body of globalization theory, modernization theory, new-liberal economics, and the policy prescriptions known as the Washington Consensus— you should read Unveiling Inequality. By taking the whole world rather than the national economy as the unit of analysis the book reaches conclusions about why some areas are prosperous and some poor, some fairly equal and others very unequal, which make the standard beliefs about these things seem about as plausible as the signs of the zodiac to astronomers.”
—ROBERT WADE, professor of political economy and development, London School of Economics 

“Unveiling Inequality is an important book. For students and teachers, it provides a concise overview of the status of global inequality and the various accounts of and explanations for it. For scholars, the proposed integration of between and within-country inequality offers a novel research agenda. The suggestion that citizenship is the basis for the new global hierarchy should be part of any policy debate on immigration.”
—MIGUEL CENTENO, professor of sociology and international affairs, Princeton University

Despite the vast expansion of global markets during the last half of the twentieth century, social science still most often examines and measures inequality and social mobility within individual nations rather than across national boundaries. Every country has both rich and poor populations making demands—via institutions, political processes, or even conflict—on how their resources will be distributed. But shifts in inequality in one country can precipitate accompanying shifts in another. Unveiling Inequality authors Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz and Timothy Patrick Moran make the case that within-country analyses alone have not adequately illuminated our understanding of global stratification. The authors present a comprehensive new framework that moves beyond national boundaries to analyze economic inequality and social mobility on a global scale and from a historical perspective.

Assembling data on patterns of inequality in more than ninety-six countries, Unveiling Inequality reframes the relationship between globalization and inequality within and between nations. Korzeniewicz and Moran first examine two different historical patterns—“High Inequality Equilibrium” and “Low Inequality Equilibrium”—and question whether increasing equality, democracy, and economic growth are inextricably linked as nations modernize. Inequality is best understood as a complex set of relational interactions that unfold globally over time. So the same institutional mechanisms that have historically reduced inequality within some nations have also often accentuated the selective exclusion of populations from poorer countries and enhanced high inequality equilibrium between nations. National identity and citizenship are the fundamental contemporary bases of stratification and inequality in the world, the authors conclude. Drawing on these insights, the book recasts patterns of mobility within global stratification. The authors detail the three principal paths available for social mobility from a global perspective: within-country mobility, mobility through national economic growth, and mobility through migration.

Korzeniewicz and Moran provide strong evidence that the nation where we are born is the single greatest deter-mining factor of how we will live. Too much sociological literature on inequality focuses on the plight of “have-nots” in wealthy nations who have more opportunity for social mobility than even the average individual in nations perennially at the bottom of the wealth distribution scale. Unveiling Inequality represents a major paradigm shift in thinking about social inequality and a clarion call to reorient discussions of economic justice in world-historical global terms.

ROBERTO PATRICIO KORZENIEWICZ is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and profesor titular at the Escuela de Política y Gobierno of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina).

TIMOTHY PATRICK MORAN is associate professor of sociology and director of Graduate Studies at State University of New York-Stony Brook

 

 

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Cover image of the book Egalitarian Capitalism
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Egalitarian Capitalism

Jobs, Incomes, and Growth in Affluent Countries
Author
Lane Kenworthy
Publication Date

About This Book

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Declining participation in labor unions, the movement toward a service-based economy, and increased globalization have cast doubt on the extent to which welfare states can continue to stem inequality in market economies over the long-term. Does the new economy render existing models of social assistance obsolete? Do traditional welfare states hamper economic and employment growth, thereby worsening the plight of the poor? Lane Kenworthy offers a rigorous empirical analysis of these questions in Egalitarian Capitalism. The book examines 16 industrialized countries in North America, Western Europe, and Scandinavia—each with different approaches to assisting the poor—to see how successful each has been in developing its economy and curbing inequality over the past twenty years.

Kenworthy finds that inequality grew in almost all of these countries, from the most progressive to the least. Using simple but powerful statistical tests, he assesses the theory that inequality is necessary to improve economic growth and reduce poverty. He finds no necessary trade-off between equality and economic growth but discovers some evidence that high minimum wages dampen employment growth in private sector services. Kenworthy suggests that without greater private sector employment, public supports may be unable to adequately sustain living standards for the poor. An equitable growth strategy necessitates a balance of policy options: Creating jobs is aided by loose employment regulation, low payroll taxes, and, in some cases, lower real wages for workers at the bottom of the income spectrum. However, high employment is also facilitated by a system that “makes work pay” with earnings subsidies, workplace flexibilities, financial support for those who are between jobs or unable to work, and universal health and child care coverage. Kenworthy suggests that these strategies, though generally presented as mutually exclusive, could be effectively combined to create a robust, fair economy.

Egalitarian Capitalism addresses fundamental questions of national policy with rigorous scholarship and a clarity that makes it accessible to any reader interested in the alleged trade-off between social equity and market efficiency. The book analyzes the viability of traditional welfare regimes and offers sustainable options that can promote egalitarian societies without hampering economic progress.

LANE KENWORTHY is assistant professor of sociology at Emory University.

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Egalitarian Capitalism

Jobs, Incomes, and Growth in Affluent Countries
Author
Lane Kenworthy
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6 in. × 9 in. 240 pages
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978-0-87154-452-0
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A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"Outlines a promising approach to egalitarianism for the early years of the twenty-first century."
-Journal of Economic Literature

"[T]his is serious, first-rate sociology in which the author's commitments, rather than clouding the analysis, clear the way forward for partisans of all stripe."
-American Journal of Sociology

"This book tackles the big question that has forever haunted the social sciences: can capitalism continue to thrive if made more equal? Egalitarian Capitalism concludes optimistically that efficiency and equality can be reconciled but this, Lane Kenworthy adds, depends on maximum employment. The social science debate has mainly been a war of words and theory. Kenworthy breaks new ground with his hard-nosed empirical scrutiny and unusual analytical rigor. Egalitarian Capitalism is the new yardstick against which we shall gauge good comparative macro analysis, and Kenworthy will, I believe, find himself on center stage in political economy debates for time to come."
-GØSTA ESPING-ANDERSEN, professor of sociology and university dean, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

"Egalitarian Capitalism makes a strong sociological contribution to the burgeoning debate about the diverging economic paths of the United States and Western Europe. The book will be an important source for researchers with interests in comparative patterns of inequality in the fields of economics, political science, and policy analysis"
-BRUCE WESTERN, professor of sociology, Princeton University

"In this timely and important contribution, Lane Kenworthy explores the relationship between inequality, economic growth, and employment in advanced industrial democracies. Based on extensive analysis of data on wage dispersion and household pre- and posttax transfer inequality, he argues convincingly that there is no evidence that inequality contributes to growth, and little evidence that inequality promotes employment creation, contrary to the claims of conservative politicians and mainstream economists. ... Students of comparative social policy and comparative political economy as well as policy analysts will find this work essential reading."
-JOHN D. STEPHENS, Lenski Professor of Political Science and Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Declining participation in labor unions, the movement toward a service-based economy, and increased globalization have cast doubt on the extent to which welfare states can continue to stem inequality in market economies over the long-term. Does the new economy render existing models of social assistance obsolete? Do traditional welfare states hamper economic and employment growth, thereby worsening the plight of the poor? Lane Kenworthy offers a rigorous empirical analysis of these questions in Egalitarian Capitalism. The book examines sixteen industrialized countries in North America, Western Europe, and Scandinavia—each with different approaches to assisting the poor—to see how successful each has been in developing its economy and curbing inequality over the past twenty years.

Kenworthy finds that inequality grew in almost all of these countries, from the most progressive to the least. Using simple but powerful statistical tests, he assesses the theory that inequality is necessary to improve economic growth and reduce poverty. He finds no necessary trade-off between equality and economic growth but discovers some evidence that high minimum wages dampen employment growth in private sector services. Kenworthy suggests that without greater private sector employment, public supports may be unable to adequately sustain living standards for the poor. An equitable growth strategy necessitates a balance of policy options: Creating jobs is aided by loose employment regulation, low payroll taxes, and, in some cases, lower real wages for workers at the bottom of the income spectrum. However, high employment is also facilitated by a system that “makes work pay” with earnings subsidies, workplace flexibilities, financial support for those who are between jobs or unable to work, and universal health and child care coverage. Kenworthy suggests that these strategies, though generally presented as mutually exclusive, could be effectively combined to create a robust, fair economy.

Egalitarian Capitalism addresses fundamental questions of national policy with rigorous scholarship and a clarity that makes it accessible to any reader interested in the alleged trade-off between social equity and market efficiency. The book analyzes the viability of traditional welfare regimes and offers sustainable options that can promote egalitarian societies without hampering economic progress.

LANE KENWORTHY is assistant professor of sociology at Emory University.

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Cover image of the book Preferences and Situations
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Preferences and Situations

Points of Intersection Between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism
Editors
Ira Katznelson
Barry R. Weingast
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$34.95
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"Preferences and Situations seeks to stimulate and promote mutual engagement between historical and rational choice institutionalisms. This is a great idea, and it is masterfully executed in a volume that features contributions by some of the leading lights from both traditions."
-KATHLEEN THELEN, Payson S. Wild Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University, and chair, Council for European Studies

"Preferences and Situations addresses those sectors of political science concerned with both theory building and the empirical applications of theoretical approaches. The editors provide a heroic synthesis of both the rational and historical institutionalist persuasions, pointing out where they triangulate on institutions and preferences and presenting a wide range of exemplars of the best work from both camps. Both sets of contributions are accessible to adherents of the other camp and avoid the paradigm warfare that often passes for debate in the social sciences. Preferences and Situations will go far to advance the integration of contemporary approaches in political science and beyond."
-SIDNEY TARROW, Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Government, Cornell University

"In Preferences and Situations Ira Katznelson and Barry R. Weingast assemble a top group of schol ars to address a central question in the social sciences: how does social context influence prefer ences? The provocative intuition that drives this volume is that fruitful answers can be produced by fostering an engagement between two approaches that are often considered at odds with one another-historical and rational choice institutionalism. The results are quite impressive. By iden tifying an array of ways in which context can affect preferences, the contributors to this volume provide a useful framework for future research that highlights the complementary strengths of the two approaches. Preferences and Situations constitutes a significant advance in our understanding of this complex question."
-JACK KNIGHT, Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government in Arts and Sciences, Washington University

A scholarly gulf has tended to divide historians, political scientists, and social movement theorists on how people develop and act on their preferences. Rational choice scholars assumed that people—regardless of the time and place in which they live—try to achieve certain goals, like maximizing their personal wealth or power. In contrast, comparative historical scholars have emphasized historical context in explaining people’s behavior. Recently, a common emphasis on how institutions—such as unions or governments—influence people’s preferences in particular situations has emerged, promising to narrow the divide between the two intellectual camps. In Preferences and Situations, editors Ira Katnelson and Barry Weingast seek to expand that common ground by bringing together an esteemed group of contributors to address the ways in which institutions, in their wider historical setting, induce people to behave in certain ways and steer the course of history.

The contributors examine a diverse group of topics to assess the role that institutions play in shaping people’s preferences and decision-making. For example, Margaret Levi studies two labor unions to determine how organizational preferences are established. She discusses how the individual preferences of leaders crystallize and become cemented into an institutional culture through formal rules and informal communication. To explore how preferences alter with time, David Brady, John Ferejohn, and Jeremy Pope examine why civil rights legislation that failed to garner sufficient support in previous decades came to pass Congress in 1964. Ira Katznelson reaches back to the 13th century to discuss how the institutional development of Parliament after the signing of the Magna Carta led King Edward I to reframe the view of the British crown toward Jews and expel them in 1290.

The essays in this book focus on preference formation and change, revealing a great deal of overlap between two schools of thought that were previously considered mutually exclusive. Though the scholarly debate over the merits of historical versus rational choice institutionalism will surely rage on, Preferences and Situations reveals how each field can be enriched by the other.

IRA KATZNELSON is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University.

BARRY R. WEINGAST is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Richard Bensel,  David W. Brady,  Charles M. Cameron, Jon Elster, John A. Ferejohn, Peter A. Hall,  James Johnson, Margaret Levi, James Mahoney,  Jeremy C. Pope.

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Cover image of the book One Nation Divisible
Books

One Nation Divisible

What America Was and What It Is Becoming
Authors
Michael Katz
Mark Stern
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$34.95
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6 in. × 9 in. 368 pages
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978-0-87154-446-9
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"Most of the book's facts and interpretations will be familiar to American historians and sociologists, but they can be thankful to have them integrated in a single, well-organized survey."
-THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY

"In this richly documented history, Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern brilliantly capture the dynamics of change and continuity that have shaped American society since the beginning of the twentieth century. With narrative grace and analytic rigor, they tell a story that weaves large-scale structural forces into the fabric of everyday life, and that challenges comforting notions about what it is that separates us from the past. Above all, it is a story that opens our eyes to the new, and old, and in some ways hardening patterns of inequality that continue to divide the United States in the new millennium. For historians, social scientists, and general readers alike, One Nation Divisible is an invaluable resource for understanding the nature, consequences, and manifestations of enduring inequality in a society that claims to embrace opportunity as its defining theme."
-ALICE O'CONNOR, associate professor of history, University of California, Santa Barbara

"To know where you are going, you need to know where you have been. No other book to my knowledge so succinctly, yet so masterfully, teases out the patterns and processes for the 'American Century,' providing both guidebook and compass for our history and identity-and for what we must confront to realize the American Dream for all."
-MIKE ROSE, professor of education, University of California, Los Angeles

"In One Nation Divisible, Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern offer a masterful review of how the United States came apart socially, economically, and demographically in the early decades of the twentieth century, how government was instrumental in putting the nation back together again in the wake of the Great Depression, and how social changes and economic transformations after the 1970s have combined with passive government and weak public leadership to divide us once again. Let us hope that many read this book to learn that government is not antithetical to a healthy market economy, but essential to its short-term viability and long-term success."
-DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, professor of sociology and public affairs, Office of Population Research, Princeton University and codirector of the Mexican Migration Project

American society today is hardly recognizable from what it was a century ago. Integrated schools, an information economy, and independently successful women are just a few of the remarkable changes that have occurred over just a few generations. Still, the country today is influenced by many of the same factors that revolutionized life in the late nineteenth century—immigration, globalization, technology, and shifting social norms—and is plagued by many of the same problems—economic, social, and racial inequality. One Nation Divisible, a sweeping history of twentieth-century American life by Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern, weaves together information from the latest census with a century’s worth of data to show how trends in American life have changed while inequality and diversity have endured.

One Nation Divisible examines all aspects of work, family, and social life to paint a broad picture of the American experience over the long arc of the twentieth century. Katz and Stern track the transformations of the U.S. workforce, from the farm to the factory to the office tower. Technological advances at the beginning and end of the twentieth century altered the demand for work, causing large population movements between regions. These labor market shifts fed both the explosive growth of cities at the dawn of the industrial age and the sprawling suburbanization of today. One Nation Divisible also discusses how the norms of growing up and growing old have shifted. Whereas the typical life course once involved early marriage and living with large, extended families, Americans today commonly take years before marrying or settling on a career path, and often live in non-traditional households. Katz and Stern examine the growing influence of government on trends in American life, showing how new laws have contributed to more diverse neighborhoods and schools, and increased opportunities for minorities, women, and the elderly. One Nation Divisible also explores the abiding economic paradox in American life: while many individuals are able to climb the financial ladder, inequality of income and wealth remains pervasive throughout society.

The last hundred years have been marked by incredible transformations in American society. Great advances in civil rights have been tempered significantly by rising economic inequality. One Nation Divisible provides a compelling new analysis of the issues that continue to divide this country and the powerful role of government in both mitigating and exacerbating them.

MICHAEL B. KATZ is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and research associate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

MARK J. STERN is professor of social welfare and history in the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

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Cover image of the book When Markets Fail
Books

When Markets Fail

Social Policy and Economic Reform
Editors
Ethan B. Kapstein
Branko Milanovic
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$44.95
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6 in. × 9 in. 248 pages
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978-0-87154-460-5
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"Social policy has been the neglected sibling of market-oriented reforms in developing and transitional countries. This book by leading economists and policy analysts shows how costly this has proved, why cookie-cutter approaches are unlikely to work, and what the international community can do to make intelligent policy making in this area more (rather than less) likely."
-DANI RODRIK, Harvard University

The sweeping political and economic changes of the past decade—including the spread of democracy, pro-market policies, and economic globalization—have dramatically increased the demand in developing countries for social programs such as unemployment compensation, pensions, and income supplements for the poor. When Markets Fail examines how emerging market economies in Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa, and the Middle East are shaping their social policies in response to these changes.

The contributors—leading scholars of development and social policy—use detailed case studies to examine whether the emerging economies are likely to move toward European-style welfare systems, characterized by high unemployment benefits and large entitlements, or if they will opt for more austere, stripped-down welfare regimes. They find that much will depend on how well emerging economies perform economically, but that the political forces, ideological preferences, and historical backgrounds of each country will also play a decisive role. In his chapter on Central and Eastern Europe, Peter Lindert focuses on how aging populations and the fall of communism have fostered increased need for social assistance in the region. In contrast, Nancy Birdsall and Stephen Haggard highlight the positive role of democratization and Western-style social programs in promoting East Asian social policies. Zafiris Tzannatos and Iqbal Kaur argue that governments in North Africa and the Middle East must foster both human capital formation and competition in the market for social services if they are to meet the growing need for services.

When Markets Fail presents some evidence that a global convergence in social policies may be taking place: as Europe slowly makes its welfare provisions less generous, the emerging market economies will be under increasing demographic and political pressure to make their social welfare systems more comprehensive. The book also examines the vital role that organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank can play in fostering effective social services in developing economies.

Economic globalization and political liberalization have produced many economic winners around the world, but these forces have created losers as well. When Markets Fail addresses the problem of how governments in developing countries have responded to the plight of those losers through social policy. The success of these policies, however, remains sharply contested, as is their role in helping to achieve meaningful poverty reduction. When Markets Fail is essential reading for anyone interested in economic liberalization and its consequences for the developing world.

ETHAN B. KAPSTEIN is with the University of Minnesota, and INSEAD, France.

BRANKO MILANOVIC is with the World Bank, Washington, D.C.

CONTRIBUTORS: Nicholas Barr,  Nancy Birdsall,  Ricardo Fuentes,  Stephan Haggard,  Iqbal Kaur,  Peter H. Lindert,  Miguel Szekely,  Zafiris Tzannatos.  

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Cover image of the book Well-Being
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Well-Being

The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology
Editors
Daniel Kahneman
Ed Diener
Norbert Schwarz
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$60.00
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7.5 in. × 10 in. 608 pages
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978-0-87154-423-0
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The nature of well-being is one of the most enduring and elusive subjects of human inquiry. Well-Being draws upon the latest scientific research to transform our understanding of this ancient question. With contributions from leading authorities in psychology, social psychology, and neuroscience, this volume presents the definitive account of current scientific efforts to understand human pleasure and pain, contentment and despair.

The distinguished contributors to this volume combine a rigorous analysis of human sensations, emotions, and moods with a broad assessment of the many factors, from heredity to nationality, that bear on our well-being. Using the tools of experimental science, the contributors confront the puzzles of human likes and dislikes. Why do we grow accustomed and desensitized to changes in our lives, both good and bad? Does our happiness reflect the circumstances of our lives or is it determined by our temperament and personality? Why do humans acquire tastes for sensations that are initially painful or unpleasant? By examining the roots of our everyday likes and dislikes, the book also sheds light on some of the more extreme examples of attraction and aversion, such as addiction and depression.

Among its wide ranging inquiries, Well-Being examines systematic differences in moods and behaviors between genders, explaining why women suffer higher rates of depression and anxiety than men, but are also more inclined to express positive emotions. The book also makes international comparisons, finding that some countries' populations report higher levels of happiness than others. The contributors deploy an array of methods, from the surveys and questionnaires of social science to psychological and physiological experiments, to develop a comprehensive new approach to the study of well-being. They show how the sensory pleasures of the body can tells us something about the higher pleasures of the mind and even how the effectiveness of our immune system can depend upon the health of our social relationships.

DANIEL KAHNEMAN is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of public affairs at Princeton University.

ED DIENER is professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

NORBERT SCHWARZ is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and senior research scientist at the Survey Research Center and the Research Center for Group Dynamics of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Michael Argyle, Jorge Armony, Howard Berenbaum, Kent Berridge, Ian A. Brodkin,  John T. Cacioppo, Nancy Cantor.  Anuradha F. Chawla, Martin W. DeVries, Aric Eich,  Shane Frederick, Barabara L. Fredrickson,  Nico H. Frijda,  PPaul Frijters,  Jose Gomez, Heidi Grant,  E. Tory Higgins,  Bartley G. Hoebel,  Tiffany A. Ito, Micheal Kubovy,  Randy J. Larsen,  Huynh-Nhu Le,  Joseph LeDoux,  George Loewenstein,  Richard E. Lucas,  Gregory P. Mark,  William N. Morris,  David G. Myers,  Susan Nolen-Hoeksema,  Christopher Peterson,  Emmanuel N. Pothos,  Pedro V. Rada,  Chitra Raghavan,  John L. Reeves,  Paul Rozin,  Cheryl L. Rustig,  Catherine A. Sanderson,  Robert M. Sapolsky, David Schkade,  James Shah,  Saul Shiffman, Peter Shizgal,  Arthur A. Stone,  Fritz Strack,  Eunkook Mark Suh,  Bernard M. S. van Praag,  Laura Vernon,  Peter Warr.   

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Cover image of the book The New Chosen People
Books

The New Chosen People

Immigrants in the United States
Authors
Mark R. Rosenzweig
Guillermina Jasso
Hardcover
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Publication Date
6.63 in. × 9.25 in. 496 pages
ISBN
978-0-87154-404-9
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About This Book

Stories of immigrant success have traditionally illustrated the basic principles of political and economic freedom in the United States. In reality, the presence and achievements of the foreign-born are the complex result of attitudes, choices, and decisions, not only of the immigrants themselves but also of the U.S. government and its native-born citizens.

Based on census data and government administrative records, The New Chosen People presents a comprehensive picture of this interaction as the authors examine immigrant behavior in the United States. Jasso and Rosenzweig trace the factors that influence the immigrants' adjustment and achievements in a broad area of concerns—learning English, finding work and earning a living, and raising a family. The authors devote special attention to family relationships—kinship migration, family reunification, and the marriage market—and to the factors determining where immigrants choose to settle. Jasso and Rosenzweig also consider the situation of the largest recent groups of refugees—Cubans and Indochinese—who have entered the U.S. under very different rules than those governing the selection of immigrants from other countries. They also look at how the foreign-born population has changed over time, drawing comparisons between post-1960 immigrants and those of 1900 through 1910. For all foreign-born, the authors discuss the factors that influence decisions to naturalize and the economic and social consequences of achieving legal status.

Jasso and Rosenzweig also detail the policy choices that affect the composition of the foreign-born population. What criteria determine who is eligible to enter the country? How do these regulations differ for each country of origin, and how have they changed over the years? The New Chosen People emphasizes the determining influence of choice and selection on the foreign-born population of the United States. For policymakers and social scientists, the book provides a valuable assessment of the economic and social well-being of the nation and its newcomers.

GUILLERMINA JASSO is professor of sociology at the University of Iowa.

MARK R. ROSENZWEIG is professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

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