This book discusses some of the most challenging ideas emerging out of the research program on institutional diversity associated with the 2009 co-recipient of 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, Elinor Ostrom, while outlining a set of new research directions and an original interpretation of the significance and future of this program.

These essays deal with the reconstruction of political economy as an evolutionary science. Four themes dominate the book: theoretical foundations; policy-making; empirical enquiry; and modelling. Other issues addressed include industrial/marketing restructuring and ecological sustainability.

The contributions to the volume present a challenge to conventional views on the extent and scope of globalization as well as to predictions of the imminent disappearance of the nation state's leverage over the economy.

With the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991, the Eastern European nations of the former socialist bloc had to figure out their newly capitalist future. Capitalism, they found, was not a single set of political-economic relations. Rather, they each had to decide what sort of capitalist nation to become. In Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery, Dorothee Bohle and Béla Geskovits trace the form that capitalism took in each country, the assets and liabilities left behind by socialism, the transformational strategies embraced by political and technocratic elites, and the influence of transnational actors and institutions. They also evaluate the impact of three regional shocks: the recession of the early 1990s, the rolling global financial crisis that started in July 1997, and the political shocks that attended EU enlargement in 2004.Bohle and Greskovits show that the postsocialist states have established three basic variants of capitalist political economy: neoliberal, embedded neoliberal, and neocorporatist. The Baltic states followed a neoliberal prescription: low controls on capital, open markets, reduced provisions for social welfare. The larger states of central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak republics) have used foreign investment to stimulate export industries but retained social welfare regimes and substantial government power to enforce industrial policy. Slovenia has proved to be an outlier, successfully mixing competitive industries and neocorporatist social inclusion. Bohle and Greskovits also describe the political contention over such arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia. A highly original and theoretically sophisticated typology of capitalism in postsocialist Europe, this book is unique in the breadth and depth of its conceptually coherent and empirically rich comparative analysis.

The bulk of contemporary economics assumes rather than explains differences between people or groups of people. Yet, many of these differences are produced by society or they imply differing opportunities and outcomes. This book argues that economists should concern themselves with the explanation of the social causes and effects of such differences. D’Ippoliti introduces the concept of diversity to summarise all differences that are of social origin and that a theory or model seeks to explain. This contrasts with the traditional concept of heterogeneity that instead refers to differences that are deemed to be exogenous of economic theory. In approaching this, the book ranges from the fields of methodology and history of economics to applied empirical work, as well as gender diversity which is considered in depth. The analysis of the thinking of two major economists of the past, John Stuart Mill and Gustav Schmoller, demonstrates how gender diversity exemplifies some of the fundamental issues in economics, such as the division of labour, society’s capacity to reproduce itself, and the role of social institutions and their impact on individual and collective behaviour. The book maintains that growth of GDP and of the services sector cannot be trusted to automatically bring about greater inclusion of women in the labour market. Active policy interventions are needed, spanning from the removal of discrimination to the provision of public services and the establishment of fair competition in the market, along with an improved division of social and political power between the sexes. This work will be of interest to researchers and students focusing on the history of economic thought, labour economics, social policy and gender studies.

Languages have deep political significance beyond communication: a common language can strengthen cultural bonds and social trust, or it may exacerbate cultural differences and power imbalances. Language regimes that emerge from political bargains can centralize power by favoring the language of one ethnolinguistic group, share power by recognizing multiple mother tongues, or neutralize power through the use of a lingua franca. Cultural egoism, communicative efficiency, or collective equality determines the choice. As Amy H. Liu demonstrates, the conditions surrounding the choice of a language regime also have a number of implications for a nation's economy. Standardizing Diversity examines the relationship between the distribution of linguistic power and economic growth. Using a newly assembled dataset of all language-in-education policies in Asia from 1945 to 2005 and drawing on fieldwork data from Malaysia and Singapore, Liu shows language regimes that recognize a lingua franca exclusively—or at least above all others—tend to develop social trust, attract foreign investment, and stimulate economic growth. Particularly at high levels of heterogeneity, the recognition of a lingua franca fosters equality and facilitates efficiency. Her findings challenge the prevailing belief that linguistic diversity inhibits economic growth, suggesting instead that governments in even the most ethnically heterogeneous countries have institutional tools to standardize their diversity and to thrive economically.

Neoliberalism and deregulation have come to dominate national and international political economy. This major book addresses this convergence and analyzes the implications for the future of capitalist diversity. It considers important questions such as: Is the preference for free markets a well-founded response to intensified global competition? Does this mean that all advanced societies must all converge on an imitation of the United States? What are the implications for the institutional diversity of the advanced economies? Political Economy of Modern Capitalism provides a practical and informed analysis of the public policy choices facing governments and business around the world.