Awards

Winner

China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption by Yuen Yuen Ang

The committee is delighted to announce that the 2022 Alice Amsden Book Award of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics goes to political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang for her book China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Honorable Mentions

Underwater: Loss, Flood Insurance, and the Moral Economy of Climate Change in the United States by Rebecca Elliott
Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas

The committee has also decided to award two Honorable Mentions, to sociologist Rebecca Elliott for her book Underwater: Loss, Flood Insurance, and the Moral Economy of Climate Change in the United States (Columbia University Press, 2021) and to sociologist Rhacel Salazar Parreñas for her book Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States (Stanford University Press, 2021).

Award Shortlist

The committee additionally wishes to recognize the other shortlisted books:

• Upsold: Real Estate Agents, Prices, and Neighborhood Inequality by Max Besbris. (University of Chicago Press, 2020)
• Coerced: Work Under the Threat of Punishment by Erin Hatton (University of California Press, 2020)
• Regimes of Inequality: The Political Economy of Health and Wealth by Julia Lynch (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
• Compressed Development: Time and Timing in Economic and Social Development by Hugh Whittaker, Timothy J Sturgeon, Toshie Okita, and Tianbiao Zhu. (Oxford University Press, 2020)

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A prolific scholar, Alice Amsden wrote extensively about the process of industrialization in emerging economies, particularly in Asia. Her work frequently emphasized the importance of the state as a creator of economic growth, and challenged the idea that globalization had produced generally uniform conditions in which emerging economies could find a one-size-fits-all path to prosperity. Amsden wrote or co-authored seven books, and dozens of journal articles, essays and chapters in edited volumes. She also wrote frequently for general-interest publications; her work appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Dissent, Boston Review, Technology Review and others.

For those who have yet to encounter her formidable works, Alice Amsden was one of the most accomplished heterodox economists in the world, specialized in the field of economic development, as well as a consummate teacher. Amsden, who received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her PhD from the London School of Economics, became an economist at a time when women held only 7% of the doctorates in the field (in the USA). She was a non-conforming empiricist, challenging dominant economic development orthodoxy by looking at the facts inductively.

With an uncanny ability to see and predict the consequences of mechanisms overlooked or rejected by others, Alice Amsden was one of the first scholars to anticipate and explain how a diverse group of emerging countries, both in Asia and in Latin America, had risen to become established economic powers in their own right. Central to Amsden’s theory of late industrialization was the assertion that economic activity capable of lifting wages is connected to a reciprocal rise in productivity following that increase. Her research sought to identify how firms could shift from primary commodity production to the production of more sophisticated and competitive goods.

Alice Amsden’s insights were multiscalar, starting at the firm and reaching upward to the state and ultimately global institutions. She advocated that development depends on learning to make goods satisfactorily – utilizing domestic markets as proving grounds at first, but ultimately with the objective target of performance achieving global standards. Her empirically informed, theoretically rich contributions continue to serve as building blocks for the practice of both policymakers and scholars – not just economists but also planners, political scientists, sociologists, and others – interested in understanding how countries can and do develop successfully. Even the World Bank itself has recently, albeit grudgingly, admitted that it went too far by requiring the rollback of policies and programs while promoting deregulation of the public sector through the unrelenting pursuit of privatization – that institutions such as this are now supporting some state (re)interventions is evidence of the impact of her ideas.

In addition to numerous journal articles, Amsden published:

• The Role of Elites in Economic Development, with Alisa Di Caprio and James A. Robinson (2012), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Escape from Empire: The Developing World’s Journey through Heaven and Hell (2007), Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• Beyond Late Development: Taiwan’s Upgrading Policies, with Wan Wen Chu (2003), Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• The Rise of “The Rest”: Challenges to the West From Late-Industrializing Economies (2001), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• The Market Meets Its Match: Restructuring the Economies of Eastern Europe, with Jacek Kochanowicz and Lance Taylor (1994), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (1989), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• International Firms and Labour in Kenya: 1945-1970 (1971), London: Routledge.

This text is composed of excerpts from the article “Revisiting development theory: Alice H. Amsden’s impact on the field”, by Judith Clifton, Amy Glasmeier, and Alpen Sheth, published in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2017 Festschrift in honor of Alice Amsden (Vol. 10, Issue 1).

MIT obituary: Alice Amsden

The Jury committee (Ginny Doellgast, Jill Rubery, and Alice Lam) is delighted to announce its unanimous decision to award the inaugural David Marsden Best Paper Prize to “So near and yet so far: a new look at the comparison of the French and British models”, written by Thomas Amossé (CNAM, Lise, CEET), Héloïse Petit (CNAM, Lirsa, CEET), Alex Bryson (University College London), and John Forth (City University London). The paper will be presented as part of session G-16: Advances in Labour Market Research, taking place from 2:45-4:15pm on Sunday, July 10^th in UvA Building A – Room A2.10.

The jury also wishes to give an honorable mention to the paper, “The Gendered Institutional Logic of Work and Employment in Korea: The Post-Asian Financial Crisis Institutional Effects on Women Workers,” authored by Francis K. Yoon. This paper will be presented as part of session G-21: Explaining  Gender Inequalities in Labour Markets II, taking place from 4:45-6:15pm on Sunday, July 10^th in UvA Building A – Room A2.08.

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David Marsden was an excellent scholar, whose exemplary vision of academic dialogue went beyond both disciplinary and national borders.  In their inaugural SER editorial, Alex Hicks and David wrote, “With the Review, we launch an enterprise that we hope will address and create dialogue among a wide and inclusive range of the various communities interested in the economy.”  David practiced this in his own research, his mentorship of generations of faculty and students at LSE, as well as his contributions to numerous journals and academic associations. He was a founding editor of Industrielle Beziehungen (the German Journal of Industrial Relations), an editor of Travail et Emploi (a research journal published by the French ministry of labour), and general editor of the British Journal of Industrial Relations.  His scholarly work on labor markets, industrial relations, and human resource management was always informed by insights from cross-national comparison and his guiding concern with understanding the role of politics and institutions in shaping the economy. These themes were reflected in numerous articles, as well as his major work A Theory of Employment Systems: Micro-Foundations of Societal Diversity (1999, Oxford University Press).  Starting from the economics of the employment relationship, David developed a novel interdisciplinary theory of managerial authority in organizing work that took account of how institutions shaped and limit such authority in very different ways across countries.

We will remember David as an inspirational colleague, mentor and friend.  His contribution to SASE is immeasurable.  He served as SASE President in 2002-2003.  He was the organizer for Network G: Labor Markets, Education, and Human Resources over several decades, where he personally welcomed generations of young scholars into SASE.  David helped SASE to host its annual conference twice at the LSE, in 2000 and most recently in 2015.  Together with Alex Hicks, David was the founding editor of Socio-Economic Review (SER) and held this position from 2001-2006.

Through his service, David contributed to both the organizational development and international visibility of SASE. He was quite simply also one of the nicest persons in the profession: energetic, engaging, and supportive, especially for younger and emerging scholars.

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Workshop Participants

Fabio Ascione, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University (joint PSE, ENS/EHESS), France
A Lending Hand from Abroad? Corporate Saving and Imported Intermediate Inputs in Three European Countries
Network O: Global Value Chains

Swati Chintala, New York University, USA
Solidarity and Collective Action in the Platform Economy in India
Network J: Digital Economy

Joshua Cova, Humboldt University of Berlin and Hertie School, Germany
Convergence and Readjustments: Exploring the Role of Minimum Wages in Europe’s Growth Models
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States

Tommaso Crescioli, London School of Economics, UK
Reinforcing Each Other: How the Combination of European and Domestic Reforms Increased Competition in Liberalized Industries
Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions

Robert Dorschel, University of Cambridge, UK
Tech Workers and the Class Matrix of Digital Capitalism
Network J: Digital Economy

Aida Garcia-Lazaro, University of Bath, UK
Growth Regimes, Intangible Capital and the Labour Share
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States

Shaquilla Harrigan, University of Pennsylvania, USA
“She Can Get a Visa”: Intersectional Identity Work at a Kenyan NGO
Network D: Professions and Professionals in a Globalizing World

Gustav Kalm, Columbia University, USA
“We Want Companies to Come Here!” Why Foreign Investment Flows Excite Witches and Lawyers Alike?
Network N: Finance and Society

Danish Khan, Franklin & Marshall College, USA
Reformulating Theories of ‘Accumulation By Dispossession’: Processes of ‘Contested Accumulations through Displacement’ in Postcolonial Punjab, Pakistan
Network B: Globalization and Socio-Economic Development

Lukas Lehner, University of Oxford, UK
Begging Thy Coworker – Labor Market Dualization and the Slow-Down of Wage Growth in Europe
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States

Wendy Li, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Trading Places: A Sequence Analysis of the Revolving Door in U.S. Trade Policy
Network D: Professions and Professionals in a Globalizing World

Kristen McNeill, Brown University, USA
Gendered Evaluations, Gendered Effects: Gatekeeping Access to (micro)Credit Markets in Colombia
Network N: Finance and Society

Andrew Messamore, University of Texas at Austin, USA
The Effect of Community Organizing on Landlords’ Use of Eviction Filing: Evidence from U.S. Cities
Network A: Communitarian Ideals and Civil Society

Barbara Orth, Free University Berlin, Germany
Riders United Will Never be Divided? – a Cautionary Tale of Disrupting the Platformization of Urban Space
Mini-conference TH09: Labor and Collective Action in Transformation

Nicholas Pang, Columbia University, USA
Race, Occupation, and the National Imaginary of Deservingness in Bankruptcy
Network N: Finance and Society

Maria Sagmeister, University of Vienna, Austria
Legal Regulations of Domestic Care Work: Facilitating or Limiting Connectivity?
Network I: Alternatives to Capitalism

Josep Serrano-Serrat, Instituto Carlos III-Juan March, Spain
Skill Specificity, Labor Market Context and Attitudes Towards Immigration
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States

Viktor Skyrman, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Connecting the Dots between Transnational Forces of Financialization and National Political Economies in Europe – the Institutionalization of Covered Bonds
Mini-conference TH01: Connecting the dots between global capitalism and national capitalisms

Diederik Stadig, VU Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Unintentional Creation of a Tax Haven
E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States

Anna Wozny, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Intermediaries in Marketized Courtship Exchanges: The Case of Japanese “Marriage-Hunting”
H: Markets, Firms and Institutions

Mustafa Yavas, Yale University, USA
The White-Collar Opt-out
G: Labor Markets, Education, and Human Resources

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Workshop Participants

Karishma Banga, Institute for Development Studies, UK
GVC Linkages and Process Upgrading in Developing Country Firms; Empirical Evidence from Indian Manufacturing
Network O: Global Value Chains – Session O-04

Lindsey Cameron, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Algorithmic Autonomy: Manufacturing Consent in the Algorithmic Workplace
Network J: Digital Economy – Session J-02

Dylan Cassar, University of Edinburgh, UK
Down to (a) Science? Epistemic Struggles, Socio-Technical Configurations, and the Enacting of Quantitative Easing at the Bank of England
Network N: Finance and Society – Session N-08

Laura Halcomb, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Crowdfunding a Life: How Relationships Shape Cultural Narratives of the Patient
Network A: Communitarian Ideals and Civil Society – Session A-10

Meredith Hall, The New School for Social Research, USA
Property and Its Provenance: A Case Study of the Emergence of Ownership
Network L: Regulation and Governance – Session L-03

Eva Herman, University of Manchester, UK
A Case of Employers Never Letting a Good Crisis Go to Waste?: The Re-Commodification Under Covid of Hourly Paid Workers
Network K: Institutional Experimentation in the Regulation of Work and Employment – Session K-01

Joshuamorris Hurwitz, Stanford Graduate School of Business, USA
Categories and Crisis: Definitions of Essential in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Network K: Institutional Experimentation in the Regulation of Work and Employment – Session K-05

Dara Leyden, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Oligopoly-Driven Development: The World Bank’s Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains in Perspective
Network O: Global Value Chains – Session O-14

Armando Martins, Instituto de Economia – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Tales of the Fall and RISE of (IN)Egalitarian Democracy: The Case of Argentina (1913-1999)
Network M: Spanish Language – Session M-06

Masoud Movahed, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Varieties of Capitalism and Income Inequality
Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions – Session H-12

Mary Naughton, University College Dublin, Ireland
Mobilising Societal Power: Understanding Public Support for Nursing Strikes
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States – Session E-12

Hanna Niczyporuk, New York University, USA
Taking a Gamble: Chinese Overseas Energy Finance and Country Risk
Mini-Conference: Development Finance in a Changing Global Context – Session TH04-01

Ke Nie, University of California, San Diego, USA
Disperse and Preserve the Perverse: Computing How Hip-Hop Censorship Changed Popular Music Production in China
Network J: Digital Economy – Session J-07

Rida Qadri, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Effectiveness of Jakarta’s Platform Worker Mutual Aid Networks during COVID-19
Network J: Digital Economy – Session J-02

Doron Shiffer-Sebba, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Trust Fund Families: Government Policy and Elite Social Reproduction
Network N: Finance and Society – Session N-02

Fernanda Soulé, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil
Transformations in the Family Business Model of Management in a Developing Economy
Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions – Session H-14

Ella Wind, New York University, USA
Who Gets the Goods? Disentangling the Effects of Parliamentary Representation and Collective Action on Welfare Spending
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States – Session E-33

Markus Wolf, Institute for Employment Research, Germany
Persistent or Temporary? Effects of Welfare Benefit Sanctions on Employment Quality in the Short and Long Run
Network G: Labor Markets, Education, and Human Resources – Session G-16

Yuhao Zhuang, University of Chicago, USA
Commercializing Benevolence: The Architecture of Grassroots-Oriented Corporate Philanthropy in Contemporary China
Network Q: Asian Capitalisms – Session Q-01

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Workshop Participants

Milan Babic, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Foreign State Investment and Geoeconomic Competition: Mapping the Consequences of the Rise of Transnational State Capital
Mini-Conference: State Capitalism and State-led Development in the 21st century: China and Beyond – Session TH14-05

Benjamin Bradlow, Brown University, USA
Embeddedness and Cohesion: Regimes of Urban Public Goods Distribution
Network B: Globalization and Socio-Economic Development – Session B-01

Gabriela Camacho, Humbold University, Germany
Two Roads of Neoliberal Reform in Higher Education: Chile and Peru in Comparative Perspective
Network B: Globalization and Socio-Economic Development – Session B-01

Cyrus Dioun, University of Colorado – Denver, USA
When It’s Good to Be Bad: Rewarding Deviance in Washington’s Marijuana Market
Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions – Session H-16 

Daniel Driscoll, University of California – San Diego, USA
The Socio-Political Foundations of Carbon Price Enactment in Twenty Wealthy Democracies
Mini-Conference: Green Economy Contradictions – Session TH10-03

Aaron Horvath, Stanford University, USA
From Accounting to Accountability: Organizational Supererogation and the Transformation of Charitable Disclosure
Network N: Finance and Society – Session N-08

Agata Kapturkiewicz, University of Oxford, UK
Varieties of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Comparative Study of Enacted Measures in Tokyo and Bangalore
Network F: Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation – Session F-06

Wan-Zi Lu, University of Chicago, USA
Political Impetus for Institutional Complementarities: Comparing the Institutionalization of Kidney Donation in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Network Q: Asian Capitalisms – Session Q-01

Erez Maggor, New York University, USA
Overcoming the ‘Spillover Problem’: The Politics of Innovation Policy Under Economic Globalization
Mini-Conference: State Capitalism and State-led Development in the 21st century: China and Beyond – Session TH14-06

Sophie Moullin, Princeton University, USA
Culture at Work: Self-Entrepreneurialism and Earnings Inequality in the United States, 1995-2014
Network G: Labor Markets, Education, and Human Resources – Session G-02

Stefan Norgaard, Columbia University, USA
Capitalization and Its Discontents: The Political Economy of Development in Ethiopia’s Gibe III Dam and NESTown Initiative
Network B: Globalization and Socio-Economic Development – Session B-05

Signe Predmore, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, USA
Finance and Development Logics: Gender Mainstreaming from Global South to North
Network D: Professions and Professionals in a Globalizing World – Session D-03

Godofredo Ramizo Jr., University of Oxford, UK
Platforms, Algorithms and User Agency: How User Strategies Reshape the Rules of Digital Platforms
Network J: Digital Economy – Session J-08

Gabor Scheiring, Bocconi University, Italy
Varieties of Dependency, Varieties of Illiberalism: A Comparative Political Economy of the Crisis of Democracy in East-Central Europe
Network B: Globalization and Socio-Economic Development – Session B-07

Padmavathi Shenoy, Indian Institute of Management Trichy, India
Changing the Rules of the Game While Playing: Process of Logic Hybridization in Community Ophthalmology Field
Network H: Markets, Firms, and Institutions – Session H-05

Matthew Soener, The New School for Social Research, USA
Did the “Real” Economy Turn Financial? Mapping the Global Contours of Corporate Financialization in the Non-Financial Sector

Mao Suzuki, University of Southern California, USA
Deciding Modalities of Global Health Governance: What Facilitates or Hinders Public-Private Partnerships?
Mini-Conference: Regulation, Innovation, and Valuation in Markets for Health and Medicines – Session TH13-04

Arianna Tassinari, European University Institute, Italy
Reassuring the Markets: The Politics of Social Concertation in Acute Crisis Times
E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States – Session E-05

Nora Waitkus, London School of Economics, UK
Wealth Inequality Regimes. Towards a Typology of Cross-National Differences in Wealth and Inequality
Mini-Conference: Mind the Wealth Gap? Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Accumulation, Justification, and (Re)Distribution of Wealth – Session TH11-01

Ayca Zayim, Mount Holyoke College, USA
Inside the Black Box: Credibility and the Situational Power of Central Banks
Network N: Finance and Society – Session N-12

Yang Zheng, City University of Hong Kong, China
Discourse Interaction in Chinese Urban Communities: Expressed Disenchantment and Disenchanted Conformance
Network A: Development, Identities, and Communitarian Ideals – Session A-02

Na Zou, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Social Networks and Micro-Entrepreneurship: The Role of Resource Variety and Resource Balance
Network Q: Asian Capitalisms – Session Q-08

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Workshop Participants

Laura Adler, Harvard University, Cambridge MA
What’s a Job Candidate Worth? Pay-Setting and Gender Inequality after the “Salary History Ban”
Network G: Labor Markets, Education, and Human Resources

Guillermina Altomonte, The New School for Social Research, New York NY
From Nursing Home to “Community:” New Institutional Ecologies of Elder Care in the United States
Network C: Gender, Work and Family

Melike Arslan, Northwestern University, Chicago IL
Why Does the Doing Business Project Conflate the Performance and the Quality of Law?
Network L: Regulation and Governance

Alvin Camba, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore City MD
Reexamining China and South-South Relations: Chinese State-Backed and Flexible Private Capitals in the Philippines
Network Q: Asian Capitalisms

Edward Crowley, New York University, New York City NY
Linking Austerity and Nationalism in Right-Wing Populism: A Cross-National Analysis of Western Democracies
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States 

Gina di Maio, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen Switzerland
Trajectories of Liberalization in Collective Governance: The Swiss Case of Polite Employer Domination and Embedded Flexibilization
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States 

Kira Gartzou-Katsouyanni, European Institute, London School of Economics (LSE), London United Kingdom
Cooperation Against the Odds: Developing Trust in the Greek Agri-Food and Tourism Sectors
Network E: Political Economy of Industrial Relations and Welfare States

Lena Gronbach, University of Cape Town, Cape Town South Africa
Social Cash Transfers and (Digital) Financial Inclusion in South Africa
Network J: Digital Economy

Gozde Guran, Princeton University, Princeton NJ
The Price of Illegality: Legal Regimes and Multiple Monies in Syrian Hawala Networks
Network N: Finance and Society

Adam Hayes, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI
The Active Construction of Passive Investors: Roboadvisors and Algorithmic “Low-Finance”
Network J: Digital Economy

Carla Ilten, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago IL
The Iron Cage Has a Mezzanine: Alternative Organizations and the Selection of Isomorphic Pressures Via Meta-Organization
Network I: Alternatives to Capitalism

Nils Kupzok, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD
Varieties of Neoliberalism in US Climate Politics
Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions

Sean O’Brady, Université de Montréal, Montreal QC Canada
Partnering Against Insecurity? a Comparison of Markets, Institutions, and Worker Risk in Canadian and Swedish Retail
Network K: Institutional Experimentation in the Regulation of Work and Employment

Johannes Petry, University of Warwick, Coventry United Kingdom
Financialisation with Chinese Characteristics? State Capitalism, Exchanges & the Development of Capital Markets in China
Network Q: Asian Capitalisms

Steven Rolf, University of Bristol, Bristol United Kingdom
National Development through (regional) Global Production Networks: The Case of Dongguan, China
Network O: Global Value Chains

Tim Rosenkranz, The New School for Social Research, New York NY
Circuits of Commodification: Imagination and Evaluation in National Destination Marketing
Network B: Globalization and Socio-Economic Development

Ellie Suh, London School of Economics and Political Science, London United Kingdom
Young British Adults’ Homeownership Circumstances and the Role of Intergenerational Transfers
Network C: Gender, Work and Family

Yixian Sun, Yale University, New Haven CT
Fertile Ground without Seeds
Network O: Global Value Chains

Arjen van der Heide, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh United Kingdom
Finitism, Rule Following and the Sociology of European Insurance Capital Regulation
Network L: Regulation and Governance

Hannah Wohl, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA
Performing Aesthetic Confidence: How Connoisseurs Maintain Status in Cultural Markets
Network H: Markets, Firms and Institutions

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The SER Best Article Prize committee (Elizabeth Thurbon [chair], Timur Ergen, and Alexandru Preda) considered all refereed articles from Volume 19 of Socio-Economic Review, including symposia papers, but not state of the art, discussion or review forum papers.  The committee looked for papers that: 1) address substantive questions and issues that have far-reaching implications and are of interest to a broad range of SER scholars; 2) clearly and effectively engage prior theory and research; 3) use state-of-the-art research methods to analyze new or existing data sets in ways that either bring important new phenomena to light or substantially revise existing understanding of socio-economic facts, trends, or relationships; 4) display theoretical and/or conceptual innovation; and 5) are written with clarity and fluidity.

The committee is delighted to announce that the winning paper is “Creating Crony Capitalism: Neoliberal Globalization and the Fuelling of Corruption” (Socio-Economic Review 19(2): 607–634), by Bernhard Reinsberg, Alexander Kentikelenis, and Thomas Stubbs. 

The committee decision text reads: 

This outstanding paper addresses a substantive question of major global importance: how and why do efforts to curb corruption—to rein in ‘crony capitalism’—fail?

The empirical target of the paper is the IMF’s structural adjustment programs and their impact on corruption in developing countries. As the authors observe, since the 1990s the IMF has positioned itself as a vanguard against crony capitalism. Over the past thirty years, the Fund has vigorously implemented its structural adjustment policies with a view to reducing the scope for corruption by shrinking the state through reforms centered on deregulation, liberalization and privatization. So how successful have the Fund’s corruption-busting conditionalities been, and how can we explain these outcomes?

The authors develop a striking answer to this question – one that turns both conventional policy practices and the economic theory that informs them on their head. Rather than ameliorating crony capitalism, the authors argue that conditionalities insisted upon by the IMF actually induce corruption. They do so by concentrating economic losses on a narrow range of powerful actors within the state and business community – thereby incentivizing these actors to defend their interests by being more corrupt. By helping to induce rather than reduce corruption, IMF conditionalities serve to undermine economic growth, social capital and democratic institutions and processes across the developing world.

To develop their argument, the authors draw on a new data set of IMF conditionality, based on original coding of Letters of Intent and other Memoranda between the IMF and its borrowers. Through a carefully-crafted regression analysis they test the relationship between IMF structural conditionalities and levels of corruption control, using three different sources as corruption indicators: one perception-based (the International Country Risk Guide) and two experience-based the Business and Enterprise Performance Survey and the International Crime Victims Survey). Their results show a strong positive relationship between IMF-mandated structural adjustment reforms and an increase corruption – both perceived and experienced.

Moreover, their results show that – unlike its structural conditionalities – the Fund’s stabilization conditions (including quantitative targets for monetary and fiscal policy) are not associated with an increase in corruption. The likely reason for this – the authors argue – is that these reforms do not concentrate losses so acutely, thereby lessening their corruption-inducing effect.

The findings of this paper directly challenge and substantially revise existing theoretical and policy assumptions about the relationship between IMF conditionalities and corruption. The findings are of major scholarly and practical significance for this reason. 

The IMF’s structural conditionalities – and the corruption they seek to address – impact the lives and livelihood of so many people across the globe – especially in the Global South. For this reason, the Committee believes that the paper has far-reaching implications. The paper should also interest a wide range of SER scholars, attendant as it is to the institutionalized relationship between the Global North and Global South, and the complex dynamics of power and polarization that characterize this relationship.  

The Committee congratulates the authors on their stellar achievement, and extends its thanks to all authors involved in producing such an impressive 19th volume of SER.

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The SER Best Paper Prize committee (Jeanne Lazarus [chair],  Elizabeth Gorman, and Aldo Madariaga) considered all the reviewed papers for the 2020 issues of Socio-Economic Review, including symposia papers, but not state of the art, discussion or review forum papers.  The committee looked for papers that: 1) addressed substantive questions and issues that have far reaching implications and are of interest to a broad range of SER readers; 2) clearly and effectively engaged prior theory and research; 3) used state of the art research methods to analyze new or existing data sets in ways that either brought important new phenomena to light or substantially revised existing understanding of socio-economic facts, trends or relationships; and 4) were written with clarity, fluidity and readability.

The committee is delighted to announce the winning paper for the 13th annual prize for the best submitted article published in the previous year:

Winner

“The Financialization of Policy Preferences: Financial Asset Ownership, Regulation and Crisis Management” (Socio-Economic Review 18(3): 655–680), by Stefano Pagliari, Lauren M. Phillips, and Kevin L. Young. 

The SER Best Paper Prize committee (Michelle Hsieh [chair], Lucio Baccaro, Monica Prasad) considered all the reviewed papers for the four 2019 issues of SER, including symposia papers, but not state of the art, discussion or review forum papers.  The committee looked for papers that: 1) addressed substantive questions and issues that have far reaching implications and are of interest to a broad range of SER readers; 2) clearly and effectively engaged prior theory and research; and 3) used state of the art research methods to analyze new or existing data sets in ways that either brought important new phenomena to light or substantially revised existing understanding of socio-economic facts, trends or relationships.

The committee is delighted to announce two co-winning papers for the 12th annual prize for the best submitted article published in the previous year: