May 31, 2023
SASE 2023 Alice Amsden Best Book Award
The Alice Amsden Best Book Award committee – Yuen Yuen Ang (University of Michigan) [chair], Daniel Kinderman (University of Delaware), and Gabor Scheiring (Bocconi University) – considered submitted books with a 2021 or 2022 first edition publication date, and which are not edited volumes, with the aim of selecting an outstanding scholarly book that breaks new ground in the study of economic behavior and/or its policy implications with regard to societal, institutional, historical, philosophical, psychological, and ethical factors.
The Alice Amsden Book Award is given annually for the best book that breaks new ground in the study of economic behavior and/or its policy implications with regard to societal, institutional, historical, philosophical, psychological, and ethical factors. The prize comes with an award of $2,000.
Winner
Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street by Megan Tobias Neely
The committee is delighted to announce that the 2023 Alice Amsden Book Award of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics goes to sociologist Megan Tobias Neeely for her book Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street (University of California Press, 2022).
The committee writes: While commentators frequently complain about the excesses of the finance industry, Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street by Megan Tobias Neely delivers what a social scientist ought to do: it provides uncommonly rich empirical insights and identifies the mechanisms—the why—behind extreme inequality in financialized economies. First, systemic exclusion creates “an interconnected—politically mobilized—financial elite” dominated by upper-class white men. Second, despite the appearance of neoliberalism and meritocracy, hedge funds have profited systematically from state-provided privileges. Remarkably, Neely makes a macro argument about “the New Gilded Age” using the micro techniques of ethnography and interviews. Her study is grounded in lived experiences and yet not lost in minute details. She steps back to reflect on the broader significance of her observations for multiple burning themes of our times. By revealing how “race, gender, and social class, as systems of inequality, lie at the heart of a system of white men’s privilege that determines who can join the financial elite,” Neely makes a major contribution to our understanding of the structures and practices that stand in the way of meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Honorable Mention
Recoding Power: Tactics for Mobilizing Tech Workers by Sidney A. Rothstein
The committee has also decided to award an Honorable Mention to political scientist Sidney A. Rothstein for his book Recoding Power: Tactics for Mobilizing Tech Workers (Oxford University Press, 2022).
The committee writes: In this timely study, Recoding Power: Tactics for Mobilizing Tech Workers, Sidney Rothstein revisits the age-old issue of workers’ mobilization in the modern context of tech firms, where workers face a surprisingly high level of precarity. With an innovative research design, Rothstein advances the bold argument that workers’ discursive creativity matter for tech workers faced with mass layoffs. Relying on a powerful comparative research design and fieldwork, Rothstein shows that recoding employers’ disempowering market-fundamentalist discourses enables workers to mobilize institutional and organizational resources and combat precarity. Rothstein not only makes a scholarly contribution, but also lays out tactics that may help to rebuild worker power.