Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43044 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

John Sloan, Financial Adviser Careers Extra
"It is a useful and wide-ranging book."

Review
... this volume and its associated literature, will become the paradigm of explanation for the next decade. (West European Politics )

Contains some first-rate analysis. (British Journal of International Relations. )

This volume offers a new approach to understanding the institutional differences and similarities among the developed economies. (Progress in Human Geography )

A milestone in the development of the subdiscipline of comparative political economy ... There is no doubt that Varieties of Capitalism will prove to be a landmark text. It is a very important collection, of value to all students in the field. (American Political Science Review )

In a collection of consistently high-quality pieces, there are particularly valuable comparative chapters on industrial relations, training systems, and corporate governance. (American Political Science Review )

Written for the informed, non-specialist observer ... a useful and wide-ranging book. (Financial Adviser )

This is an academic book in the sense that it draws on recent advances in economic and political theory - non-economists may find some chapters hard going - but it is also firmly based on an analysis of how companies really behave ... an important and carefully argued book. (Sir Geoffrey Owen, Financial Times )

Quoted as one of the six books to change the world. (New Statesman )

It is a useful and wide-ranging book. (John Sloan, Financial Adviser Careers Extra )

This book has been well worth waiting for. It demonstrates the wealth of insights that could be achieved through Soskice's innovative research program that began to change the agenda of Comparative POlitical Economy more than a decade ago. The volume combines a definitive restatement of the varieties of capitalism approach with illuminative applications to the range of research areas covered by it with some fascinating theoretical extensions. Excellent! (Professor F.W. Scharpf, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne )

Financial Adviser
"Written for the informed, non-specialist observer ... a useful and wide-ranging book."

Customer Reviews

A political economy classic

Varieties of Capitalism poses a key question: why aren't all modern capitalist states the same? Haven't globalisation's cheerleaders been telling us for years that all economies will inevitably converge around the Anglo-Saxon deregulatory model? Actually, no. Germany, for instance, remains the world's top exporter and other states have found ways to thrive economically that don't involve aping the US.

Their secret, according to Hall and Soskice, is that they play to their institutional strengths. Institutions, in political economy terms, are the unwritten rules and signals that govern actors' behaviour, and they vary widely between different states. The institutions that underpin, for instance, the highly co-ordinated German economy produce a particular economic outcome, one that is very different from those at work in liberal market economies like the US. Moreover, these institutions reinforce each other. For instance, the German governments' commitment to worker training means firms are able to pursue product strategies based on high value goods. The hausbank system, whereby firms are controlled through interlocking shareholdings of banks, reinforces this long-term outlook.

Contrast this with the equity-finance structures of UK and US firms, which produce a more short-termist outlook that is better at innovation but necessitates product strategy based on lower quality, price-sensitive goods - the "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" approach of a lot of manufacturing there.

The essays in Varieties of Capitalism, together with the excellent and clearly written introduction by Hall and Soskice, explore these institutional linkages in all their complexity. Standout chapters include Kathleen Thelen on labour markets, Bob Hancke on large firms and institutional restructuring in France, and Orfeo Fioretos on the implications of VoC for multilateral agreements such as EMU. The rational choice institutionalist method that Hall and Soskice pursue may put off some, but it's all done very sensibly and un-dogmatically. Empty formalising is conspicuous by its absence.

Varieties of Capitalism has sparked a huge debate in political economy. It's main weakness is its economic determinism - do these institutional co-ordinations really work so smoothly? However, anyone interested in modern societies cannot afford to ignore this book.