From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2007 - 17:35:49 EDT
While Marxist orthodoxy debates whether skilled labor can be homogeneous abstract labour, there is in fact a burgeoning literature on the political economy of skills, as a quick Google reveals. Perhaps worth a look at, if we want to find a way out of metaphysics and philology here. Kathleen Thelen. How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 352 pp. Index. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-5218-3768-5. This is a superb work of comparative historical political economy. It makes a sound and enlightening empirical contribution to our understanding of the emergence of four quite distinct national systems of vocational training. And it makes a provocative theoretical argument about the character and process of institutional change over time. This review will deal with each of these dimensions of the book in turn. http://www.ialhi.org/news/i0604_5.php Are Skills the Answer?: The Political Economy of Skill Creation in Advanced Industrial Countries (Paperback) by Colin Crouch (Author), David Finegold (Author), Mari Sako (Author) This study of vocational education in advanced industrial countries contributes to two different areas of debate. The first is the study of the diversity of institutional forms taken by modern capitalism, and the difficulties currently surrounding the survival of that diversity. Rather than analysing economic institutions and governance in general, the authors specifically focus upon the key area of skill creation. The second theme is that of vocational education and training in its own right. http://www.amazon.com/Are-Skills-Answer-Political-Industrial/dp/0199241112 Do Surges in Less-Skilled Immigration Have Important Wage Effects? A Review of the U.S. Evidence Howell, David R. | 3/5/2007 This paper reviews a small part of a vast professional literature on the labor market effects of new immigrants. It focuses on recent studies that have employed econometric techniques to estimate wage effects of less-skilled immigrants during the two great American immigration surges (roughly 1870-1914 and 1980 to the present). http://www.peri.umass.edu/Publication.236+M52d1f166a16.0.html François Bourguignon. and Thierry Verdier, The Political Economy of Education and Development in an Open Economy Review of International Economics Volume 13 Issue 3 Page 529 Issue 3 - 548 - August 2005 If the price effect of opening up a developing economy may be expected to act as a disincentive for investment in human capital, the opposite is likely to be true of the income effect, especially in the presence of credit market imperfections among the poor. It is shown in this paper that this may no longer be the case in a society initially dominated by an oligarchic capitalist elite that is afraid of losing its political control in favor of an educated middle class. Although it may sometimes be in its interest to democratize by subsidizing education when the economy is closed, incentives to do so disappear when the economy is open to trade or factor flows. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9396.2005.00522.x Michael Mimicopoulos, The Global Political Economy in the Knowledge Age http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan024391.pdf Ashton, David; Green, Francis; James, Donna; Sung, Johnny, Education and Training for Development in East Asia: The Political Economy of Skill Formation in East Asian Newly Industrialised Economies. ESRC Pacific Asia Programme [Series]. Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 ($90). This book provides a detailed analysis of the development of education and training systems in Asia and the relationship with the process of economic growth. Focus is on four impoverished agrarian economies--Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan--that were transformed in little more than a generation into East Asian "tigers": industrialized, comparatively affluent enclaves.http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED444031&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=ED444031 Education, Globalization and Social Change (Paperback) by Hugh Lauder (Editor), Phillip Brown (Editor), Jo-Anne Dillabough (Editor), A. H. Halsey Oxford University Press, USA (August 14, 2006) Education is seen as central to economic competitiveness, the reduction of poverty and inequality, and environmental sustainability. The editors have selected key writings that examine the social and economic limits- and possibilities of-education in addressing these fundamental problems. This new reader establishes the field of sociology of education with a particular focus on papers that analyse the nature and extent of globalization in education. A general introduction presents the key concepts in the sociology of education, and outlines the major theories and debates, especially in relation to globalization. Each section is accompanied by a part opener explaining and contextualizing the readings within a larger educational and sociological context. http://www.amazon.com/Education-Globalization-Social-Change-Lauder/dp/0199272530 Jurriaan Let me tell you some more about myself, you know I'm sitting at home just now. The big events of the day are passed and the late TV shows have come around. I'm number one in the home team, but I still feel unfulfilled. A silent voice in her broken heart complaining that I'm unskilled. - Pete Townshend, Slit Skirts
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