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"Institutional economics is a sociocultural discipline and policy science which draws on the idea that economies are best understood through an appreciation of history, real-world institutions, and socioeconomic interrelations. This book brings together leading institutionalists to examine the tradition's most essential perspectives and methods. The contributors to the book draw on a broad range of institutional thought from the classic work of Thorstein Veblen, John R. Commons, and Karl Polanyi, to the newer viewpoints of post-Keynesian institutionalism, feminist institutionalism, and environmental institutionalism. Methods range from frameworks used to analyze public policy and institutional change, to modes of analyses including myth busting, historically grounded narratives, and computer-based simulations. Each chapter surveys the origins, development, key features, applications, and frontiers of a particular viewpoint, framework, or mode of analysis. Due consideration is given to both strengths and weaknesses; and woven into the chapters is attention to core institutionalist concepts, including technology, institutions, culture, and complexity. The book provides economists with promising starting points for new research, students with contributions refreshingly in touch with the real world, and policymakers and social scientists with compelling reasons for engaging further with the institutionalist tradition. Charles J. Whalen is Research Fellow at the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, University at Buffalo, USA. For over three decades he has contributed to institutional economics, national economic policy discussions, equitable regional development, and worker engagement in business decision-making. This is his fifth book"--

This text provides an alternative to conventional economics, drawing on the neoclassical and non-neoclassical insights of Lester Thurow, Robert Heilbroner, Alice Amsden, Barry Bluestone and 11 other prominent economists from America and England. It is intended to provide productive analyses of several contemporary economic problems

Job offshoring has faded from the headlines since the 2004 presidential election, but the problem remains serious and continues to deserve public attention. A large portion of the U.S. workforce remains at risk to offshoring. Vulnerability is widespread and includes employees of nearly all sectors and skill levels. Moreover, the losses suffered by affected workers are often substantial. Fortunately, there are constructive public policies that can ease this dislocation and foster a more competitive, high‐employment economy.

In recent years, Democrats and Republicans have proposed establishing a two‐year budget and appropriations cycle for the United States government. This article analyzes the potential impact of such budgeting. It examines the budget period in theory and practice; introduces federal biennial‐budgeting proposals and core arguments offered in support of this reform; and presents studies of state budgeting, including a biennial‐budgeting survey released by New Jersey in 1995, to evaluate these arguments. The article concludes that the federal budget process can be restructured to maximize the advantages of biennial budgeting in ways that outweigh its disadvantages.

Charles J. Whalen evaluates the political and economic arguments in favor of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and concludes that, although today's federal budget process needs reform, the balanced budget amendment is not a solution. In fact, such an amendment would divert attention from what is really needed, namely, establishing priorities and making difficult decisions concerning the deficit. It would be damaging to both the economic and the political systems of the United States. He recommends budget alternatives - a full-employment budget, an investment budget, a narrowly defined federal capital budget, a biennial budget - that would give the budgeting process more direction and encourage more restraint than the amendment would.