Books in the Economy and Society series

Work is, and always will be, a central institution of society. What makes a capitalist society unique is that it treats the human capacity to engage in labor as a basic commodity. This can be a source of dynamism, as when innovative firms raise wages to attract the best and brightest.

Social relations are crucial for understanding diverse economic actions and a network perspective is central to that explanation. Simple exchanges involving money, labor, and commodities combine into complexly connected systems.

Should governments be involved in economic affairs? Challenging prevailing wisdom about the benefits of self-regulating markets, this accessible and engaging book advances a uniquely sociological perspective on economy and state connections to emphasize that states can never be divorced from economy.

This book offers a fresh and uniquely sociological perspective on money and credit. As basic economic institutions, money and credit are easy to overlook when they work well. When they malfunction, as they did in the new millennium's global financial crisis, their importance becomes obvious and demands further investigation.

The global financial crisis has challenged many of our most authoritative economic ideologies and policies. After thirty years of reshaping the world to conform to the market, governments and societies are now calling for a retreat to a yet undefined new economic order.

* Offers a fresh and uniquely sociological perspective on the construction and operation of markets. * Reviews classic and contemporary literature, but also organizes it in a way that provides a new and more advanced sociological view of markets.

* Clear and concise book that explains how the functioning and shape of the economy depend upon social institutions. * Reveals the crucial role formal and informal institutions in everyday life play in how the economy works.