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Worker Satisfaction and Economic Performance: Microfoundations of Success and Failure
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Comments/Reviews
Description: This work challenges some of the fundamental tenets of "free market" economics, including the beliefs that high wages invariably mean low profits, that a "free" market will automatically reduce discrimination and pay inequality, that anti-trust legislation hinders competitive market forces, and that minimum wage laws and trade unions negatively impact the economy.
Using both theoretical analysis and real-life examples, the author argues that these myths are products of unrealistic behavioral assumptions about the typical worker. He focuses on the concept of "human agency" to show how the level of workers' satisfaction with their jobs -- as a reflection of how well they are paid and trated by thir employers -- has a direct impact on the quality and quantity of what they produce, and inevitably, on the economic performance of the firm.
Selected Contents:
Foreword, Shlomo Maital
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Revising the Microfoundations of Economics
2. Human Agency as a Determinant of Material Welfare
3. The Methodology of Economics and the Survivor Principle Revised
4. A Behavioral Theory of Economic Welfare and Economic Justice
5. The Economics of Exogenous Increases in Wage Rates in a Behavioral/X-Efficiency Model of the Firm
6. A Behavioral Model of Endogenous Economic Growth
7. Interfirm, Interregional, and International Differences in Labor Productivity: Why Convergence Need Not Take Place
8. The Economics of Profitable Inefficiency and Market Failure: A Behavioral Model of Path Dependency
9. Economic Theory, Public Policy, and the Challenge of Innovative Work Practices
10. The Efficiency- and Welfare-Promoting Role of Labor Rights and Labor Power in a Market Economy
11. A Revisionist View of the Economic Implications of Child Labor Regulations
12. How Discriminatory Pay Inequality Can Persist: Even in Competitive Markets
13. When Green Isn't Mean: The Economics of Environmental Regulations
14. Big Is Not Always Better: A Critical Appraisal of the Transaction Cost-Economizing Paradigm
15. Culture as a Determinant of Material Welfare
References
Index
About the Author
Comment(s): "Morris Altman places human agency at the center of economic life and theory. Worker Satisfaction and Economic Performance illustrates the many ways in which free competitive markets should be expected to generate poor social outcomes. The inescapable message is that political choices cannot be avoided." -- James K. Galbraith, author of Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay and co-editor of Inequality and Industrial Change: A Global View
"Altman has been a leading researcher in behavioral economics for more than a decade. In Worker Satisfaction and Economic Performance, Altman shows that behavioral models of minimum wage laws, wage levels, unions, the distribution of income, culture, and firm size yields different policy conclusions than does a standard economic model. Economists of all persuasions will find Altman's book stimulating." -- Roger Frantz, San Diego State University and author of X-Efficiency: Theory, Evidence, and Applications
"Altman's new book presents a rich alternative and heterodox theory of how society's welfare could be improved through wage determination taking workers' preferences into consideration. Building upon the mainstream neo-classical framework, he shows clearly how the adoption of more realistic behavioral and institutional assumptions lead to significantly different policy implications. Any reader interested in the operation of labor markets is encouraged to read this book with an open mind." -- Erik Thorbecke, Cornell University
" Worker Satisfaction and Economic Performance is a timely and important book. Altman shows that an approach to microeconomic theory and practices that justifies unfair and inequitable treatment of workers not only is immoral but is bad economics as well. Contrary to much neoclassical economic thinking, this book confirms that in the long run a just society also is an efficient society. This message should be widely read and debated." -- Ray Marshall, The University of Texas
Review(s): Altman is to be applauded for extending the model of X-inefficiency... His contributions will be welcomed by social and institutional economists... Eastern Economic Journal
    
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