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| Last Update: 29.03.08 |  |
| "One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." -Bertrand Russell | ||
My doctoral thesis: The Pin Maker and the Entrepreneur.
One of the most important tasks of political economy is to explain the relationship between firms and their institutional environment.
In my thesis, I demonstrate that both the competitive behavior and lobbying decisions made by firms are in part determined by the production technologies they employ and the ways in which their institutional environment allows them to mobilize and control resources. When firms attempt to use a new technology, they often find that there is a mismatch between the demands it imposes and the ways in which they are allowed by law and regulation to extract the factors of production from their environment and manipulate them in a production process.
Faced with such a situation, firms employing new production technologies are sometimes forced to become institutional innovators, creating or modifying social institutions in order to gain access to and managerial control over the resources demanded by their new production technologies.
This process is inherently political. In order to gain the institutional or regulatory tools they need, firms must enlist the public authority of the state. After tracing the argument in theoretical terms, I examine how firms and industry associations do this, negotiating both with the government itself and other interest groups in society to make possible the use of new production technologies. Specifically, I use detailed historical studies of the banking and automobile industries in the United States to develop an argument that explains why firms succeed or fail in the face of technological change based on the "fit" between technological imperatives and institutional constraints. When these are mismatched, the success of a firm or an entire industry depends on their ability to alter their institutional or regulatory environment.
The kind of lobbying engaged in by firms seeking access to new resources has not been adequately studied in political science or in economics, which are dominated either by rent seeking models of firms political behavior or transaction cost models that assume institutions are created or modified in a rational process that responds to changing needs.
Viewing adaptation as an institutionally constrained political process helps resolve enduring puzzles in political economy, such as why the comparative advantage of industries shifts over time or why long-standing regulatory standards can suddenly become politicized.
- Chapter I: Introduction (download in .pdf format)
- Chapter II: Technology, Production, and Politics (available by request)
- Chapter III: Lean Production in the American Auto Industry: 1979-1993 (available by request)
- Chapter IV: Chapter 4: Electronic Data Processing in the Commercial Banking Industry: 1960-1972 (available by request)
- Chapter V: Conclusion (available by request)
One of the most important tasks of political economy is to explain the relationship between firms and their institutional environment.
In my thesis, I demonstrate that both the competitive behavior and lobbying decisions made by firms are in part determined by the production technologies they employ and the ways in which their institutional environment allows them to mobilize and control resources. When firms attempt to use a new technology, they often find that there is a mismatch between the demands it imposes and the ways in which they are allowed by law and regulation to extract the factors of production from their environment and manipulate them in a production process.
Faced with such a situation, firms employing new production technologies are sometimes forced to become institutional innovators, creating or modifying social institutions in order to gain access to and managerial control over the resources demanded by their new production technologies.
This process is inherently political. In order to gain the institutional or regulatory tools they need, firms must enlist the public authority of the state. After tracing the argument in theoretical terms, I examine how firms and industry associations do this, negotiating both with the government itself and other interest groups in society to make possible the use of new production technologies. Specifically, I use detailed historical studies of the banking and automobile industries in the United States to develop an argument that explains why firms succeed or fail in the face of technological change based on the "fit" between technological imperatives and institutional constraints. When these are mismatched, the success of a firm or an entire industry depends on their ability to alter their institutional or regulatory environment.
The kind of lobbying engaged in by firms seeking access to new resources has not been adequately studied in political science or in economics, which are dominated either by rent seeking models of firms political behavior or transaction cost models that assume institutions are created or modified in a rational process that responds to changing needs.
Viewing adaptation as an institutionally constrained political process helps resolve enduring puzzles in political economy, such as why the comparative advantage of industries shifts over time or why long-standing regulatory standards can suddenly become politicized.
I am presently working on an article based on selections of chapters 2
and 4 that I hope to submit for publication this spring. If you
have any interest in chapters 2-5, please contact me by E-mail.
My 2007 APSA Paper presented in Chicago: Corporatism on the Defensive.
In the early 1990’s, the paradigmatic neo-corporatist system in Europe began to unravel. Austria’s Social Partnership system simultaneously faced political challenges to its legitimacy, liberalization of the national economy, and integration into European and global markets. While the macro-level coordination that defined this system has been essentially destroyed by these changes, this paper argues that the institutions of neo-corporatism in Austria continue to fulfil important roles in providing services to constituents and enhancing the effectiveness of government intervention in the economy. At the micro- and meso-levels, the Chambers of Labor and Commerce have adapted to a new set of roles and retain important characteristics that distinguish them from pluralist organizations as both lobbying groups and as quasi-public administrative bodies that enhance the effectiveness of economic intervention by the state.
In the early 1990’s, the paradigmatic neo-corporatist system in Europe began to unravel. Austria’s Social Partnership system simultaneously faced political challenges to its legitimacy, liberalization of the national economy, and integration into European and global markets. While the macro-level coordination that defined this system has been essentially destroyed by these changes, this paper argues that the institutions of neo-corporatism in Austria continue to fulfil important roles in providing services to constituents and enhancing the effectiveness of government intervention in the economy. At the micro- and meso-levels, the Chambers of Labor and Commerce have adapted to a new set of roles and retain important characteristics that distinguish them from pluralist organizations as both lobbying groups and as quasi-public administrative bodies that enhance the effectiveness of economic intervention by the state.
- Corporatism on the Defensive (download in .pdf format)
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