Economics and Society - Research

The factors that make some cities more successful has become an increasingly important policy issue. This book is the first to explore facets of competitiveness in a systematic way that combines theory, evidence and policy implications. Bringing together experts on urban economic performance, it provides a new look at urban competitiveness.

Governments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce.

This insightful and progressive book proposes a new moral approach to public policy to replace Third Way governments' failed attempts to reconcile global markets with ethically-informed public policies.

This book casts light on the empirical relationship between labour market deregulation through non-standard contracts and the three main dimensions of worker security: employment, income and social security.

This much-needed book analyses the social, economic and labour market advantages of a Citizen's Income in the UK. It also contains international comparisons and links with broader issues around the meaning of poverty and inequality, making a valuable contribution to the debate around benefits.

This important book looks beyond the Millennium Development Goals to highlight 12 major public policy conversations about the continent post-2015, arguing that Africa as a continent must work on developing a society that is socially, economically and politically inclusive.

This book presents a comprehensive exploration of the state of infrastructure in Africa and provides an integrated analysis of the challenges the sector faces, based on extensive fieldwork across the continent, providing an important resource for researchers, students, policymakers and NGOs.

Academics from a range of disciplines and from a number of European and Latin American countries come together to question what it means to have a ‘sustainable society’ and to ask what role alternative social and solidarity economies can play.

After a meteoric rise, China's growth has come to a screeching halt. Salvatore Babones provides an up-to-date assessment of how China's economic problems are undermining its challenge to the Western-dominated world order. He tells how liberal individualism has become the leitmotif of American Tianxia.

Leading scholars and practitioners from a range of backgrounds and regions use area-specific case studies to critically assess the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) project and its impact.

This edited volume investigates the changing patterns of labour market and unemployment policies in EU member states during the period since the politics of austerity took hold in 2010.

This book examines poverty in the context of the economy, society and the political community, considering how states can respond to issues of inequality, exclusion and powerlessness. Drawing on examples in both rich and poor countries, this is an accessible contribution to the debate about the nature of poverty and responses to it.