The volume analyzes the long-term trajectories of change in the capitalist models of the UK, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and the United States. The case studies identify critical junctures and key periods of change in order to show how institutions are shaped by different sets of socio-political compromises and public policy. The case studies follow a common methodology, comparing change and linkages across six core institutional domains, thus facilitating a comparative understanding of the patterns and drivers of institutional change, as well as how liberalisation impacts countries in similar and dissimilar ways. The historical perspective of the cases highlights the transformative effects of relatively slow and incremental changes. These case studies also make an innovative contribution to examining the linkages between four levels of institutions that regulate the economy – the international, macro (national), meso, and micro. The volume reveals both a common trend toward more liberal forms of capitalism but also variations on this overarching trajectory. Markets themselves create their own dynamics, which have varied effects on firms and other economic actors in historically diverse institutional contexts. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

The current crisis in Europe is being labelled, in mainstream media and politics, as a ‘public debt crisis’. The present book draws a markedly different picture. What is happening now is rooted, in a variety of different ways, in the destabilisation of national models of capitalism due to the predominance of neoliberalism since the demise of the post-war ‘golden age’. Ten country analyses provide insights into national ways of coping – or failing to cope – with the ongoing crisis. They reveal the extent to which the respective socio-economic development models are unsustainable, either for the country in question, or for other countries. The bottom-line of the book is twofold. First, there will be no European reform agenda at all unless each country does its own homework. Second, and equally urgent, is a new European reform agenda without which alternative approaches in individual countries will inevitably be suffocated. This message, delivered by the country chapters, is underscored by more general chapters on the prospects of trade union policy in Europe and on current austerity policies and how they interact with the new approaches to economic governance at the EU level. These insights are aimed at providing a better understanding across borders at a time when European rhetoric is being used as a smokescreen for national egoism.

This book uses comparative economic analysis to provide a common conceptual framework for all current European Union member states. Based on empirical investigation, the author identifies the Nordic, North-western, Mediterranean, and Central and Eastern models of capitalism on the threshold of the 2008 global financial and economic crisis. The chapters also examine the resulting institutional responses to the crisis and the methods of crisis management adopted by each member state. The analysis reveals that the crisis has not triggered radical institutional change but, instead, highlighted deep institutional differences not between the old and new member states, but between the Nordic, North-western, Mediterranean, and Central and Eastern European countries. These institutional differences are so significant that they require the rethinking of European integration theory. Models of Capitalism in the European Union serves as a useful handbook for academics, advanced students, policy-makers and advisors who are interested in European economic issues.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.

The volume analyzes the long-term trajectories of change in the capitalist models of the UK, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and the United States. The case studies identify critical junctures and key periods of change in order to show how institutions are shaped by different sets of socio-political compromises and public policy. The case studies follow a common methodology, comparing change and linkages across six core institutional domains, thus facilitating a comparative understanding of the patterns and drivers of institutional change, as well as how liberalisation impacts countries in similar and dissimilar ways. The historical perspective of the cases highlights the transformative effects of relatively slow and incremental changes. These case studies also make an innovative contribution to examining the linkages between four levels of institutions that regulate the economy – the international, macro (national), meso, and micro. The volume reveals both a common trend toward more liberal forms of capitalism but also variations on this overarching trajectory. Markets themselves create their own dynamics, which have varied effects on firms and other economic actors in historically diverse institutional contexts. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019 From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

"Originally published in 2015 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Great Britain"--Title page verso.