A revealing look at the decline in formal employment in favor of hiring contractors, freelancers, temps, and marginal workers, who are excluded from traditional benefits and career ladders.Companies cannot exist without workers, but they are increasingly reluctant to have employees. Instead of providing the benefits and protections that have traditionally come with employee status, businesses are turning to tactics that let them treat people as interchangeable part...

Experts discuss improving job quality in low-wage industries including retail, residential construction, hospitals and long-term healthcare, restaurants, manufacturing, and long-haul trucking.Americans work harder and longer than our counterparts in other industrialized nations. Yet prosperity remains elusive to many. Workers in such low-wage industries as retail, restaurants, and home construction live from paycheck to paycheck, juggling multiple jobs with variabl...

The number of elderly and disabled adults who require assistance with day-to-day activities is expected to double over the next twenty-five years. As a result, direct care workers such as home care aides and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) will become essential to many more families. Yet these workers tend to be low-paid, poorly trained, and receive little respect. Is such a workforce capable of addressing the needs of our aging population? In Who Will Care for Us? economist P...

We live in an age of economic paradox. The dynamism of America's economy is astounding--the country's industries are the most productive in the world and spin off new products and ideas at a bewildering pace. Yet Americans feel deeply uneasy about their economic future. The reason, Paul Osterman explains, is that our recent prosperity is built on the ruins of the once reassuring postwar labor market. Workers can no longer expect stable, full-time jobs and steadily rising incomes. Instead, ...

Prominent economists discuss internal labor markets, the dynamics of immigration, labor market regulation, and other key topics in the work of Michael J. Piore.In Economy in Society, five prominent social scientists honor Michael J. Piore in original essays that explore key topics in Piore's work and make significant independent contributions in their own right. Piore is distinctive for his original research that explores the interaction of social, politic...

For more than a year, Hillary Clinton has laid out an ambitious agenda to improve the lives of the American people and make our country stronger and safer. Stronger Together presents that agenda in full, relating stories from the American people and outlining the Clinton/Kaine campaign’s plans on everything from apprenticeships to the Zika virus, including:-Building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.-Making the biggest i...

The neo-liberalism that dominated economic thinking since the advent of Thatcher and Reagan is now seen to have serious flaws. Progressive Capitalism seeks to replace it with a new Progressive political economy, based on an analysis of why the growth rates of countries differ, and what firms have to do to achieve competitive advantage in today's global economy. The cornerstone of the political economy of Progressive Capitalism is a belief in capitalism. But it also incorporates the three d...

How governments can do a better job of supporting entrepreneurship and venture capitalSilicon Valley, Singapore, Tel Aviv—the global hubs of entrepreneurial activity—all bear the marks of government investment. Yet, for every public intervention that spurs entrepreneurial activity, there are many failed efforts that waste untold billions in taxpayer dollars. When has governmental sponsorship succeeded in boosting growth, and when has it fallen terribly short? Should...

What drives wealthy and powerful people to white-collar crime? "Fascinating portraits" (Washington Post) of the dark side of the business world.From the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the insider traders at McKinsey, to the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, the failings of corporate titans are regular fixtures in the news. In Why They Do It, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes ...

There is an emerging consensus that all is not well with today’s market-centric economic model. Although it has delivered wealth over the last half century and pulled millions out of poverty, it is recession-prone, leaves too many unemployed, creates ecological scarcities and environmental risks, and widens the gap between the rich and the poor. Around $1 trillion a year in perverse subsidies and barriers to entry for alternative products maintain “business-as-usual” while obscuring their ...

One of Time's 100 most influential people "shines a new light on the need for a holistic approach to caregiving in America . . . Timely and hopeful" (Maria Shriver).In The Age of Dignity, thought leader and activist Ai-jen Poo offers a wake-up call about the statistical reality that will affect us all: Fourteen percent of our population is now over sixty-five; by 2030 that ratio will be one in five. In fact, our fastest-growing demographic is the ...

Canadians have achieved an enviable balance of economic prosperity and civic harmony, but as emerging countries like China, India, and Brazil take their place alongside developed economies, we cannot be complacent. Our high paying jobs, world-class learning and research institutes, excellent health care, and social safety nets exist only to the extent that we are innovative and competitive globally.Canada: What It Is, What It Can Be provides an incisive examination of this...