Jorge Garcia-Arias

Labor supply: Toward the construction of an alternative conception from post Keynesian and institutional economics

ABSTRACT Post Keynesian and institutional economics have traditionally maintained a critical stance toward the orthodox model of labor supply, questioning many of its underlying assumptions. Nevertheless, this critical view has not led to the formulation of an alternative conception of labor supply that is sufficiently coherent and structured to be generally accepted within these branches of the literature. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to contribute to the construction of such an alternative. To do so, the article starts by analyzing the relationship between the reasons that lead to individuals offering their labor and what that activity can bring to human beings in return. Secondly, the authors present an alternative concept of what workers contribute at work. They then analyze how the decision-making process regarding the labor supply actually takes place. Finally, the article concludes by briefly presenting certain additional points, in particular how differentiation is an inherent feature of the labor supply.

Book Review: Lucia Pradella and Thomas Marois (eds), Polarizing Development: Alternatives to Neoliberalism and the Crisis

crisis of their own. Reducing expenditure on teachers, rather than underpinning viable old age security, is the objective. The comparative chapters are informative and less ideologically charged. Ziblatt’s chapter is a highlight, extending his work on Italian and German unification to suggest that the European Union’s developing fiscal centralisation undermines most of what is valuable about federalism. This book turns an excellent question about how federal states behave in the crisis into an ideological manifesto. As policy analysis, it is inadequate. There is almost nothing about the procyclical nature of balanced budget rules, about the wisdom of smoothing expenditures over cycles, about the quality of the American teaching workforce, about appropriate fiscal policies or about the hazards of making social welfare and investment depend on business cycles. It is also weak political science. Why should we focus on one independent variable – intergovernmental fiscal rules – and one dependent variable – regional debt? Why should we adopt a style of analysis from the 1970s, in which politicians simply maximise expenditure? Decades of political science and political economy on topics from productivity to partisanship to bond markets to business-cycle determinants of expenditure are ignored. The result is a book about federalism that we do not need.

Book Review: International Relations: Governing the World? Cases in Global Governance:

regional organisations to make repeated use of this instrument, on the other. He rightly emphasises the vast complexity of evaluating effectiveness, and not only recognises that different logics can be at play within the same episode, but also stresses the importance of analysing unintended consequences and the interaction between sanctions and the broader policy strategy. Two critical remarks can be formulated. First, Giumelli’s extremely nuanced qualitative evaluation approach makes comparative larger-N research rather difficult, creating interesting methodological challenges for future researchers. Second, despite the nuanced analytical framework and the introduction of counterfactuals, it remains challenging to identify the isolated causal impact of sanctions on the realisation of broader foreign policy goals. That being said, this book forms an important step in moving the effectiveness debate in a fresh direction.

Book Review: International Relations: Governing the World? Cases in Global GovernanceGoverning the World? Cases in Global Governance by SophieHarman and DavidWilliams (eds). Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 242pp., £26.99, ISBN 978 0 4156 9041 6

regional organisations to make repeated use of this instrument, on the other. He rightly emphasises the vast complexity of evaluating effectiveness, and not only recognises that different logics can be at play within the same episode, but also stresses the importance of analysing unintended consequences and the interaction between sanctions and the broader policy strategy. Two critical remarks can be formulated. First, Giumelli’s extremely nuanced qualitative evaluation approach makes comparative larger-N research rather difficult, creating interesting methodological challenges for future researchers. Second, despite the nuanced analytical framework and the introduction of counterfactuals, it remains challenging to identify the isolated causal impact of sanctions on the realisation of broader foreign policy goals. That being said, this book forms an important step in moving the effectiveness debate in a fresh direction.

Governing the World? Cases in Global Governance by Sophie Harman and David Williams (eds). Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 242pp., £26.99, ISBN 978 0 4156 9041 6

regional organisations to make repeated use of this instrument, on the other. He rightly emphasises the vast complexity of evaluating effectiveness, and not only recognises that different logics can be at play within the same episode, but also stresses the importance of analysing unintended consequences and the interaction between sanctions and the broader policy strategy. Two critical remarks can be formulated. First, Giumelli’s extremely nuanced qualitative evaluation approach makes comparative larger-N research rather difficult, creating interesting methodological challenges for future researchers. Second, despite the nuanced analytical framework and the introduction of counterfactuals, it remains challenging to identify the isolated causal impact of sanctions on the realisation of broader foreign policy goals. That being said, this book forms an important step in moving the effectiveness debate in a fresh direction.