The Diversity of Modern Capitalism

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Diversity of Modern Capitalism The Diversity of Modern Capitalism BRUNO AMABLE Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX26DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok BuenosAiresCape Town Chennai Dar esSalaam Delhi Hong Kong IstanbulKarachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Bruno Amable The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2003 All rightsreserved. No part of thispublication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographicsrightsorganization. Enquiriesconcerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–926113–X (hbk) 0–19–926114–8 (pbk) 13579108642 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The origin of this book goes back to a research project on the comparative dynamics of innovation systems undertaken with Pascal Petit, Yann Cadiou, Sandrine Paillard, and Saad Salman at CEPREMAP and funded by the European Community under the Targeted Socio-economic Research Programme. Although stressing the importance of innovation and technology, the project wasin fact a comparative analysisofmodern capitalisteconomies.The theoretical and empirical work performed in the course of this project led to examinations of the coherence of the various systems and the complementarity relationships between the various institutional forms characteristic of these systems. Discussions with David Soskice, Bob Hancké, and Donatella Gatti at the WZB were very helpful for the advancement of my research. But I am most indebted to my CEPREMAP colleagues Ekkehard Ernst and Stefano Palombarini, with whom I undertook a research project on institutional complementarity funded by the French Ministry of Education and Research. The many discussions we had during this research project were a great stimulus for writing thisbook. My research hasbene fited from the commentsof Masahiko Aoki, Peter Hall, Bruce Kogut, David Marsden, and Wolfgang Streeck during the seminars on institutional complementarity held at CEPREMAP in November 1999 and April 2002 and the conference on ‘The Sourcesof Innovation ’ organized in Parisby the Centre Saint-Gobain pour la Recherche en Economie in June 2001. I would like to thank Helen Callaghan for reading the final draft of the book, Sonja Wiemann for her patience and support, and David Musson for his encouragement. Contents List of Figures ix List of Tables xii List of Abbreviations xiv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Institutional Diversity of Capitalism 1 1.2 Institutional Complementarity 5 1.3 Institutions and Politics 9 1.4 Five Different Modelsof Capitalism 13 1.5 An Empirical Investigation of the Diversity of Capitalism 16 1.6 Institutional Change and Political Strategies in Europe 23 2 Institutions, Complementarity, and Hierarchy 26 2.1 Institutions and Economics 26 2.1.1 Why Institutions Matter 26 2.1.2 Elementsof a Theory of Institutions 32 2.1.3 Institutions and Conflict of Interest 35 2.1.4 Institutions as a Political-Economy Equilibrium 46 2.2 Institutional Complementarity 54 2.2.1 Interaction 55 2.2.2 Complementarity 59 2.3 Institutional Hierarchy 66 3 A Comparative Analysis of Capitalism 74 3.1 Historical and International Differentiation of Capitalism 74 3.2 Methodological Questions 79 3.3 Social Systems of Innovation and Production 85 3.4 Diversity of Capitalism 93 3.4.1 Elements of Differentiation Among Models; Possible Institutional Complementaries 93 3.4.2 Five Typesof Capitalism 102 4 Institutional Diversity: An Analysis of Five Domains 115 4.1 Product Markets 115 4.2 The Wage–Labour Nexus124 4.2.1 Employment Protection 125 viii CONTENTS 4.2.2 Industrial Relations 130 4.2.3 Employment Policy 138 4.3 Financial Systems 142 4.4 Social Protection 149 4.5 Education 160 4.6 Conclusion 169 5 The Diversity of Economic Models 171 5.1 The Five Modelsof Capitalism 171 5.2 Diversity of Capitalism and Political Equilibria 181 5.2.1 Partisan Politics 183 5.2.2 Political Systems 189 5.3 Comparative Institutional Advantage? 197 5.3.1 An Analysis of Science/Technology/Industry Specialization 200 5.3.2 The New Economy 210 5.4 Economic Performance 213 6 Whither Continental European Capitalism? 225 6.1 The European Context 226 6.2 The Third Way and the Continental European Model 231 6.2.1 A Crash Course on the Third Way 231 6.2.2 The Economicsand Economic Policy of the Third Way 235 6.2.3 A Battle of Systems? 238 6.3 The Continental European Welfare–Labour Nexus244 6.3.1 A Limited Welfare State Retrenchment 245 6.3.2 New Bargaining Patterns250 6.3.3 No European Level Wage Bargaining 251 6.4 The Financial Sector 253 6.5 Conclusion 261 Appendix: The Methodology behind the Statistical Analysis in Chapter4 266 References 290 Index 303 List of Figures 2.1 Pay-off matrix for the typewriter game 35 2.2 Pay-off matrix for the etiquette game 39 2.3 Modified pay-off matrix for the etiquette game 42 2.4 Institutions as a political-economy equilibrium 48 2.5 Performance matrix 62 2.6 Pay-offsfor the wage-bargaining game 63 2.7 Pay-offsfor the financial-systems game 65 3.1 Social systems of innovation and production 86 4.1 Active variablesin the first factorial plane—product markets118 4.2 Active variablesin the second factorial plane —product markets118 4.3 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—product markets120 4.4 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—product markets120 4.5 Active variablesin the first factorial plane—employment protection 127 4.6 Active variablesin the second factorial plane —employment protection 127 4.7 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—employment protection 129 4.8 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—employment protection 129 4.9 Active and illustrative variables in the first factorial plane—industrial relations 133 4.10 Active and illustrative variables in the second factorial plane—industrial relations 134 4.11 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—industrial relations 135 4.12 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—industrial relations 135 4.13 Active variablesin the first factorial plane (as % of GDP)—employment policy 139 4.14 Active variablesin the second factorial plane (as% of GDP) —employment policy 139 4.15 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—employment policy 141 4.16 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—employment policy 141 4.17 Active variablesin the first factorial plane—financial systems 143 4.18 Active variablesin the second factorial plane —financial systems 144 x LIST OF FIGURES 4.19 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—financial systems 146 4.20 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—financial systems 146 4.21 Active variablesin the first factorial plane—social protection 151 4.22 Active variablesin the second factorial plane —social protection 151 4.23 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—social protection 153 4.24 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—social protection 153 4.25 Active variablesin the first factorial plane—education 164 4.26 Active variablesin the second factorial plane —education 165 4.27 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—education 166 4.28 Countries' representation in the second factorial plane—education 167 5.1 Countries' representation in the first factorial plane—final, aggregate analysis 176 5.2 The five typesof capitalism 177 5.3 The five typesof capitalismincluding a differentiated Continental European model 178 5.4 Income inequality plotted against the distance from the social-democratic model 179 5.5 Total rate of taxation plotted against the distance from the social-democratic model 180 5.6 Votesfor left partiesin lower-chamber electionsplotted againstthe distance from the market-based model 184 5.7 Votes for left-libertarians plotted against the distance from the social-democratic model 185 5.8 Votes for right-wing populist parties plotted against the distance from the market-based model 186 5.9 Number of seats in the lower chamber for left-libertarian parties plotted against wage-bargaining coordination 186 5.10 Number of seats for left-libertarian parties plotted against active-employment policies 187 5.11 Percentage of vote for left partiesplotted againstcentralization of financial systems 188 5.12 Percentage of vote for left-libertarian partiesplotted againstthe extent of the Welfare State 188 5.13 Government policy-position range plotted against number of veto players 191 5.14 Political-party concentration plotted against the distance from the market-based model 192 5.15 Constitutional rigidity plotted against the distance from the market-based system 192 LIST OF FIGURES xi 5.16 Number of veto
Recommended publications
  • Is There an Institutional Base of Thenew Economy?
    4 Is there an institutional base of the new economy? Bruno Amable Introduction The phenomenon of the new economy possesses many interrelated aspects that affect the micro, meso and macro levels. The basic idea behind the concept is that “something new” is happening in the fields of technology, internal organization of firms, macroeconomic policy, pattern of public intervention and economic geography (see Amable et al. 2002). A wide-spread thesis assumes that: (i) the new economy defines a new long-term growth trajectory based on a few “generic” technologies—mainly information and communication technologies (ICTs) but also biotechnologies and more generally the “weightless” economy1; (ii) associated with this new trajectory are an array of institutions that are capable of stimulating the technical change and structural changes which are needed to launch the technological trajectory that the new economy has defined; (iii) lastly, as would seem to be indicated on the one hand by the United States’ advance in the new ICT-related fields and on the other hand by its superior macroeconomic performances during the 1990s, one has to adopt American institutional characteristics in order to be successful. The example of the United Kingdom allegedly represents the confirmation of this thesis, as well as the proof that it is possible to overcome Euro-sclerosis. In sum, changes in modern capitalism are supposedly leading the developed countries toward an “Anglo-Saxon” model, replete with deregulated financial markets, “flexible” labor markets, technologically dynamic and newly created firms, greater competition in the product markets, etc. All in all, a situation that is relatively distant from the trajectory followed by the Continental European economies in the aftermath of the Second World War.
    [Show full text]
  • Virus Economics: an American Tragedy, By
    THE CURRENT JOB OUTLOOK Regional Labor Review (Fall 2020) Virus Economics: An American Tragedy by Robert Guttmann The Balancing Acts of Virus Economics The world seemed largely distracted with more mundane matters when a new coronavirus, labelled SARS- CoV-2, appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan (China) and then, superbly adapted for human-to-human transmission, launched its planetary march of exponential spread in January 2020. We should have been better prepared for the possibility of a global pandemic even though the last such occurrence of comparable danger happened over a century ago – the “Spanish Flu” of 1918/19. Signs of an impending pandemic have abounded in recent years, with five near misses over the last couple of decades - SARS in 2002, the bird flu in 2005, the swine flu in 2009, MERS in 2012, and Ebola in 2014/15. This heightened threat of pandemics is consequence of stressors our modern capitalist economies have put on the environment altering the relationship between humans and animals – the accelerating destruction of our planet’s biodiversity, erosion of wildlife habitats, animal commerce, increased meat consumption, and changing patterns of movement by certain animals key to the production of new viruses and their zoonotic transmission, notably bats. The sad truth is that, even beyond the new coronavirus, the world will remain susceptible to recurrent pandemics as global threat which makes today’s experience an important trial run for future episodes. From an epidemiological point of view, the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is a formidable foe. It is highly transmissible by inter-personal contact, as an airborne aerosol, or even touch of surface.
    [Show full text]
  • Globalization and Varieties of Capitalism: Lessons for Latin America
    Robert Schuman Globalization and Varieties of Capitalism: Lessons for Latin America Sebastián Royo Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 8 No. 18 September 2008 Published with the support of the EU Commission. The Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series The Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series is produced by the Jean Monnet Chair of the University of Miami, in cooperation with the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, a partnership with Florida International University (FIU). These monographic papers analyze ongoing developments within the European Union as well as recent trends which influence the EU’s relationship with the rest of the world. Broad themes include, but are not limited to: ♦ EU Enlargement ♦ The Evolution of the Constitutional Process ♦ The EU as a Global Player ♦ Comparative Regionalisms ♦ The Trans-Atlantic Agenda ♦ EU-Latin American Relations ♦ Economic issues ♦ Governance ♦ The EU and its Citizens ♦ EU Law As the process of European integration evolves further, the Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Papers is intended to provide current analyses on a wide range of issues relevant to the EU. The overall purpose of the monographic papers is to contribute to a better understanding of the unique nature of the EU and the significance of its role in the world. Miami - Florida European Union Center Jean Monnet Chair Staff University of Miami Joaquín Roy (Director) 1000 Memorial Drive Astrid Boening (Associate Director) 101 Ferré Building María Lorca (Associate Editor) Coral Gables, FL 33124-2231 Phone: 305-284-3266
    [Show full text]
  • University of Toronto Department of Political Science POL 472H / 2372H the Comparative Political Economy of Industrial Societies
    University of Toronto Department of Political Science POL 472H / 2372H The Comparative Political Economy of Industrial Societies Fall 2019 Professor: Rodney Haddow Class time: Thursday, 2 PM – 4 PM Class location: SS 1078 My office location: 3119 Sidney Smith Hall; 100 St. George Street Office hours: Wednesday, 4:15-5:15; Thursday, 4:15-5:15; I am also available by appointment. E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: (416) 978-8710 [NB: It is much easier to reach me by e-mail than to contact me by phone at this number, except during office hours!] Course description: This seminar course examines the relationship of state and economy in advanced capitalist democracies, assessing the importance of differences across time and space for a proper understanding of this connection. It investigates the ‘variable geometry’ of the relationship between the exercise of sovereign authority, on the one hand, and the production and distribution of wealth, on the other, under advanced capitalism. There is now a voluminous and dynamic scholarly literature on this topic. We will start with an examination of some classical authors on political economy, the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (VoC) approach to comparative political economy, and recent alternatives to VoC. The course then addresses macro-economic policy, the concept of ‘dualization’, the political economy of the European Union, the consequences of labour market deregulation, the impact of trade unions, and the social bases of voting. Format: This is a seminar course; classroom sessions will be devoted to the discussion of the readings assigned for that session. Students are expected to complete the required readings, even when they are not submitting a paper or making an oral presentation.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutional Complementarities in the Dynamic Comparative Analysis of Capitalism
    Journal of Institutional Economics (2016), 12: 1, 79–103 C Millennium Economics Ltd 2015 doi:10.1017/S1744137415000211 First published online 22 June 2015 Institutional complementarities in the dynamic comparative analysis of capitalism BRUNO AMABLE∗ Paris School of Economics- Universite´ Paris I Pantheon´ – Sorbonne and Institut universitaire de France, France Abstract. The concept of institutional complementarity plays an important role in the comparative analysis of capitalism. It has often been criticised for being too static and too functionalist, unable to explain change because it would propose a view of institutional forms fitting perfectly with one another. After having presented the concept and its interest for comparative capitalism, this article argues in favour of its usefulness to explain institutional change. However, in order to be integrated fruitfully into a theory of institutional change, it is necessary to have a political economy definition of complementarity, which should not take institutions as some sort of inputs in a production function, but as socio-political compromises established in historically-specific conditions. 1. Introduction The concept of institutional complementarity has been widely used in the historical and comparative institutional analyses of capitalism (Amable, 2000, 2003; Aoki, 1994, 2013; Boyer, 2004; Deeg and Jackson, 2007; Hall and Soskice, 2001;Hopner,¨ 2005),1 in order to express the idea that certain institutional forms, when jointly present, reinforce each other and contribute to improving the functioning, coherence or stability of specific institutional configurations, varieties or models of capitalism. Taking into account complementarities is important for several reasons. The notion is associated with the idea that there exist several feasible combinations of complementary institutions; this runs against the idea of the existence of a ‘one best way’ for institutional configurations, which would consist of a collection of ‘best practices’ in different institutional areas.
    [Show full text]
  • Possible Course on 'Comparative Political Economy of Developed Societies'
    University of Toronto Department of Political Science POL 472H / 2372H The Comparative Political Economy of Industrial Societies Fall 2012 Professor: Rodney Haddow Class time: Thursday, 2-4 Class location: UC 67 My office location: 3119 Sydney Smith Hall; 100 St. George Street Office hours: Tuesday, 4:30-5:30; Thursday, 4:30-5:30 E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: (416) 978-8710 [NB: It is much easier to reach me by e-mail than to contact me by phone at this number, except during office hours!] Course description: This seminar course examines the relationship of state and economy in advanced capitalist democracies, assessing the importance of differences across time and space for a proper understanding of this connection. It investigates the ‘variable geometry’ of the relationship between the exercise of sovereign authority and the production and distribution of wealth and income under advanced capitalism. There is now a voluminous and dynamic literature within political science on these questions. We will start with an examination of the current debate about the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (VoC) approach to comparative political economy and its alternatives, antecedents and relevance to Canada. The course then addresses the state’s possibly shifting scale, its role in stimulating growth and in macro-economic policy, the impact of trade unions, and the social basis of voting and electoral systems. Format: This is a seminar course; classroom sessions will be devoted to the discussion of the readings assigned for that session. Students are expected to complete the required readings, even when they are not submitting a paper or making an oral presentation.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutional Complementarity and Diversity of Social Systems of Innovation and Production
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Amable, Bruno Working Paper Institutional complementarity and diversity of social systems of innovation and production WZB Discussion Paper, No. FS I 99-309 Provided in Cooperation with: WZB Berlin Social Science Center Suggested Citation: Amable, Bruno (1999) : Institutional complementarity and diversity of social systems of innovation and production, WZB Discussion Paper, No. FS I 99-309, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), Berlin This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/44076 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu discussion paper FS I 99 - 309 Institutional Complementarity and Diversity of Social Systems of Innovation and Production Bruno Amable* September 1999 ISSN Nr.
    [Show full text]
  • Identifying the Structure of Institutions to Promote Innovation and Growth N° 9919
    1 Identifying the structure of institutions to promote innovation and growth Bruno AMABLE* Pascal PETIT** N° 9919 Consulter le Web : http://www.cepremap.cnrs.fr *CEPREMAP/Univ. de Lille-II 142 rue du Chevaleret- 75013 Paris e-mail : [email protected] **CEPREMAP/CNRS – 142 rue du Chevaleret-75013 Paris e-mail : pascal [email protected] 2 IDENTIFYING THE STRUCTURE OF INSTITUTIONS TO PROMOTE INNOVATION AND GROWTH Abstract This paper investigates the possibility of accounting for the role played by institutions in the dynamics of technical change and growth in a policy oriented perspective. The main question is to choose the institutions relevant for such an analysis. Approaches like that of the National Systems of Innovation starts from a sectoral point of view, i.e. science and technology, and progressively extend the range of institutions considered in the analysis with a logic of connection between institutions and fields. Other institutionalist approaches consider the whole range of institutions affecting economic behaviour and make no a-priori restrictions. This paper pleads for an intermediate approach where the selection of relevant institutions is guided by the concept of complementarity of institutions. We distinguish two types of institutional complementarities, and we indicate some possible developments relevant for economic policy. Résumé CARACTERISER LA STRUCTURE INSTITUTIONNELLE POUR PROMOUVOIR INNOVATION ET CROISSANCE Cet article analyse comment rendre compte du rôle que jouent les institutions dans la dynamique du changement technique et de la croissance économique. La principale question est de sélectionner les institutions pertinentes pour une telle analyse. Des approches comme celles des Systèmes Nationaux d’Innovation partent d’un point de vue sectoriel…, c’est-à-dire d’un secteur science et technologie, et élargissent progressivement l’étendue des institutions retenues en s’appuyant sur une logique de connection entre institutions et activités.
    [Show full text]
  • Poland and Ukraine Compared
    What Type of Capitalism in Post-Communist Europe ? Poland and Ukraine Compared Vlad Mykhnenko By the beginning of the 21st century, the East European political economies and examine academic discussion of post-communist ‘transition’ whether the newly-emerged institutional forms of has appeared to be almost over. A considerable post-communist capitalism function as number of post-communist, predominantly Asian, complementary – interdependent and mutually re- nations have appeared to be accomplishing their enforcing – systemic elements. Drawing on the transition by regression to consolidated autocracy empirical analysis of the region’s two largest and command economy. Hence the focus of most neighbouring political economies, I will argue that scholars of democratisation and marketisation has several parallel, i.e. non-converging, types of post- now shifted to the newly-established pluralist communist capitalism have been emerging on the market regimes of Eastern Europe. Towards what continent. Both possess a large number of type of system has this more approximate part of similarities with respect to the specific models of the post-communist world transited? What kind of modern capitalism identified in the literature; yet, capitalism has taken root in the region? How close none is fully analogous to them. is the emerging formation to a ‘Western standard’? The scope of this paper is limited to the Several scholarly contributions aimed at comparative institutional analysis of the two addressing some of these issues have appeared variant capitalisms in transition. Thus, the recently (see, for example, Lane 2000; Chavance questions as to why and how such divergent types and Magnin 2000; Buravoy 2001; Cernat 2002; of capitalism have been constructed in Poland and Martin 2002; Hunter 2003).
    [Show full text]
  • Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Political Economy: an Empirical Analysis
    B.J.Pol.S. 39, 449–482 Copyright r 2009 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0007123409000672 Printed in the United Kingdom First published online 1 May 2009 Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Political Economy: An Empirical Analysis PETER A. HALL AND DANIEL W. GINGERICH* This article provides a statistical analysis of core contentions of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ perspective on comparative capitalism. The authors construct indices to assess whether patterns of co-ordination in the OECD economies conform to the predictions of the theory and compare the correspondence of institu- tions across subspheres of the political economy. They test whether institutional complementarities occur across these subspheres by estimating the impact of complementarities in labour relations and corporate governance on growth rates. To assess the durability of varieties of capitalism, they report on the extent of institutional change in the 1980s and 1990s. Powerful interaction effects across institutions in the subspheres of the political economy must be considered if assessments of the economic impact of institutional reform in any one sphere are to be accurate. The field of comparative political economy has been interested for many years in understanding how differences in the organization of national political economies con- dition aggregate economic performance. Behind such inquiries lies the intuition that more than one economic model can deliver economic success. But what are the central features that distinguish the operation of one political economy from another, and how should countries be categorized along these dimensions of difference? For the developed economies, the answers usually given to these questions in each era have corresponded to the principal challenges confronting those economies.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutional Complementarities in the Dynamic Comparative Analysis of Capitalism
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by HAL-Paris1 Journal of Institutional Economics (2016), 12: 1, 79–103 C Millennium Economics Ltd 2015 doi:10.1017/S1744137415000211 First published online 22 June 2015 Institutional complementarities in the dynamic comparative analysis of capitalism BRUNO AMABLE∗ Paris School of Economics- Universite´ Paris I Pantheon´ – Sorbonne and Institut universitaire de France, France Abstract. The concept of institutional complementarity plays an important role in the comparative analysis of capitalism. It has often been criticised for being too static and too functionalist, unable to explain change because it would propose a view of institutional forms fitting perfectly with one another. After having presented the concept and its interest for comparative capitalism, this article argues in favour of its usefulness to explain institutional change. However, in order to be integrated fruitfully into a theory of institutional change, it is necessary to have a political economy definition of complementarity, which should not take institutions as some sort of inputs in a production function, but as socio-political compromises established in historically-specific conditions. 1. Introduction The concept of institutional complementarity has been widely used in the historical and comparative institutional analyses of capitalism (Amable, 2000, 2003; Aoki, 1994, 2013; Boyer, 2004; Deeg and Jackson, 2007; Hall and Soskice, 2001;Hopner,¨ 2005),1 in order to express the idea that certain institutional forms, when jointly present, reinforce each other and contribute to improving the functioning, coherence or stability of specific institutional configurations, varieties or models of capitalism. Taking into account complementarities is important for several reasons.
    [Show full text]
  • Bruno AMABLE Date of Birth
    Bruno AMABLE Date of birth: 15 December 1961 Citizenship: French Married, one child University Professor (Classe exceptionnelle 1er échelon) at the Université Paris I Panthéon – Sorbonne, Centre d’économie de la Sorbonne, UMR CNRS 8174 e-mail : [email protected] Education Agrégation du supérieur, Exam for the position of University Professor, 1998. PhD in economics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), 1991. Thesis advisor: Robert Boyer. DEA (equivalent MA) in 'Analyse et Politique Economiques' , EHESS, 1987. Diplom of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), (Graduate School of business and management), 1984. Current Positions Professor of Economics at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne Associate Member of the Paris School of Economics (PSE) Research fellow with CEPREMAP (Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications), Paris Previous Positions 2001-2006 Professor of Economics at the University of Paris X - Nanterre 1998-2001 Professor of Economics at the University of Lille II. 1991-98 Researcher at the Institut National pour la Recherche Agronomique (INRA). 1989-1991 Researcher at the Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), Paris. 1984-1986 Research Assistant at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. Organisation of conferences and Research responsibility (most recent) Co-organiser (with Hideko Magara) of the mini-conference “Social coalitions, political and economic crisis and diversity of capitalism” at the SASE Annual Meeting, London, LSE, June 2015. Guest editor (with Cornelia Storz, Sébastien Lechevalier and Steven Caspers) of a special issue of Socio Economic Review on Asian Capitalism, 2013 Co-organiser (with Elvire Guillaud) of the mini-conference “Socio-economic conflict and the dynamics of Institutional change” at the SASE Annual Meeting, Boston, MIT, June 2012.
    [Show full text]