Outsourcing Economics: Global Value Chains in Capitalist Development
by William Milberg & Deborah Winkler
Paperback: 370 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (May 24, 2013)
ISBN-10: 1107609623
ISBN-13: 978-1107609624
Outsourcing Economics has a double meaning. First, it is a book about the economics of outsourcing. Second, it examines the way that economists have understood globalization as a pure market phenomenon, and as a result have "outsourced" the explanation of world economic forces to other disciplines. Markets are embedded in a set of institutions - labor, government, corporate - that mold the power asymmetries that influence the distribution of the gains from globalization. In this book, William Milberg and Deborah Winkler propose an institutional theory of trade and development. They find that offshoring reduces employment and raises income inequality in countries that lack institutions supporting workers. They also find that offshoring allows firms to reduce domestic investment and focus on finance and short-run stock movements. Development has become synonymous with "upgrading" in global value chains, but this is not sufficient for improved wages or labor standards.
The Making of the Economic Society
(The Pearson Series in Economics)
by Robert Heilbroner & William Milberg
Series: The Pearson Series in Economics
Edition: Thirteenth
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall; 13 edition (July 16, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0136080693
ISBN-13: 978-0136080695
With its roots in history and eyes on the future, this book traces the development of our economic society from the Middle Ages to the present, offering a balanced perspective of why our economy is the way it is and where it may be headed. It explores the catalytic role past economic trends and dynamics–particularly capitalism–have played in creating the present challenges we face, and offers suggestions on how we may deal with them most effectively in the future.
The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought
by Robert Heilbroner & William Milberg
Paperback: 131 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1st edition (January 26, 1996)
ISBN-10: 0521497744
ISBN-13: 978-0521497749
A deep and widespread crisis affects modern economic theory, a crisis that derives from the absence of a "vision"--a set of widely shared political and social preconceptions--on which all economics ultimately depends. This absence, in turn, reflects the collapse of the Keynesian view that provided such a foundation from 1940 through the early 1970s, comparable to earlier visions provided by Smith, Ricardo, Mill, and Marshall. The "unraveling" of Keynesianism has been followed by a division into discordant and ineffective camps whose common denominator seems to be their shared analytical refinement and lack of practical applicability. This provocative analysis attempts both to describe this state of affairs, and to suggest the direction in which economic thinking must move if it is to regain the relevance and remedial power it now pointedly lacks.