SASE 2011 Madrid Conference
Transformations of Contemporary Capitalism: Actors, Institutions, Processes
Conference Theme Overview
Contemporary capitalism appears anything but stable. From the micro to the macro, from the local to the global, almost every element of socio-economic organization and governance is widely acknowledged to be in flux. The boundaries of firms and supply chains; the location of productive activity and the spatial division of labor; the regulation of markets and business transactions; skill formation and working careers; household and family structures; employment relations and welfare regimes: all these are in upheaval across developed and developing economies alike. Yet there is little consensus on how to characterize these transformations or where they are heading. Is globalization leading to convergence of national political economies on a single (neo-liberal) model, the reproduction of historic institutional divergences based on complementarities and comparative advantage, or the emergence of new forms of diversity through local experimentation and hybridization? Have worldwide trends towards liberalization and privatization resulted in a global disembedding of markets, or is a transnational web of rules, incorporating new social and prudential standards, emerging through various combinations of public and private authority at multiple levels of governance? Are new forms of decentralized production and work organization in global value chains leading to greater exploitation and insecurity for supplier firms, employees, and local communities, or do they create new opportunities for individual and collective upgrading of skills and capabilities? Are welfare states being retrenched, dualized, or recalibrated – for example through the provision of better coordinated and more personalized services – in response to new social risks and intensified fiscal pressures?
If the answers to such questions remain uncertain and contested, so too do the causal processes and explanatory mechanisms producing these ongoing transformations themselves. There is widespread recognition that the dominant approaches to institutional analysis – rationalist, sociological, historical – have difficulties in reconciling the complex and differentiated patterns of change emerging from empirical observation of contemporary capitalism with their underlying theoretical assumptions about the stability of institutions, whether understood as equilibria among interests, taken-for-granted norms and scripts, or enforceable constraints. For one broad group of scholars, this problem has spurred a search for specific causal mechanisms capable of accounting for gradual but transformative institutional change, some operating unintentionally and others driven by the shifting interests of powerful actors. For a second group of scholars, it has given rise instead to a focus on the creativity of social actors: their capacity to reflect on their situation, envisage and evaluate alternatives, revise practices and routines, and recombine and recompose institutional resources in response to new challenges. For a third group of scholars, finally, explanations of transformative institutional change are rooted instead in more fundamental socio-economic processes operating behind the backs of the actors themselves, such as capitalism’s relentless drive to open up new markets and circumvent old rules, or the tendency of production under competitive conditions to migrate to locations where living standards and hence wage costs are historically lower.
This year’s conference aims to take stock of current debates on transformations of contemporary capitalism and competing approaches to the relationship between actors, institutions, and processes in their explanation. We welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions, covering a wide range of socio-economic issues, institutional fields, and governance domains, at multiple levels of analysis from the local to the global, across the developed and developing world.
Program co-chairs
- Gary Herrigel
- Peer Hull Kristensen
Local Organizer
- Santos Ruesga
Mini-Conferences
The 2011 SASE Annual Meeting featured 8 mini-conferences:
The Capability Approach: A New Perspective on Labor Market and Welfare Policies?
Organizers: Peter Bartelheimer, Ortrud Lessmann, Wenzel Matiaske
Current transformations of capitalism, affecting different levels of political and economic organization as well as social structure and dynamics, raises the question, “From which perspective is this comprehensive change to be observed and judged?” The choice of the point of reference has a crucial impact on how we think about the current transformation. In the debate about measuring societal progress, the Capability Approach (CA), as brought forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, has become prominent as a new evaluative framework. Instead of using an aggregate outlook, it takes the perspective of the individual and instead of confining itself to monetary aspects, it takes a multi-dimensional stance. Beyond this, the CA is most concerned with personal freedom as a constituent of a good life – both the freedom to choose between ways of life and the freedom to influence processes of change. Moreover, the CA addresses the question of justice in terms of enhancing each person’s freedom, understood as broadening her (multi-dimensional) opportunities. With regard to people’s working lives, this mini-conference aims at exploring whether the CA does indeed provide an adequate perspective for judging the transformation of contemporary capitalism and whether it can provide guidance for politics. We invite theoretical and empirical papers on how the CA can be applied to the fields of labor market, labor relations, and the welfare state. Scholars adopting different perspectives on the utility of the CA in this context are invited to share their views on this paradigm of rising influence.
Nonstandard Employment Across Disciplinary Boundaries
Organizers: Silvia Dorado, Bas Koene, Royston Greenwood, Paul Hirsch, Francois Michon
Standard employees, those who work a set of hours at a firm’s location and expect long careers within it, are being supplemented/replaced by non-standard, contract, freelance, contingent, temporary, and telecommuting employees. The shift from standard to non-standard employment calls into question established institutional and disciplinary boundaries. The aim of this mini-conference is to bring together scholars interested in the challenges to traditional research streams as well as the new research questions brought about by this shift at the institutional, organizational, and individual levels of analysis. Possible topics for contribution include but are not restricted to (1) the impact of these new practices on the priorities and effectiveness of the labour movement and the state’s welfare agenda, (2) the impact of the growth, consolidation and differentiation of the temporary employment industry on the global reorganization of production and firms, (3) changes in employment and organizing practices within traditional professions and occupations such as architecture, engineering, or accounting, and (4) the emergence of novel communities connecting non-standard employees. International comparisons, especially those focusing on the relationships between standard and non-standard employment, are encouraged. Also of interest would be research on the emergence and challenges of organizations (Worker Integration Social Enterprises, WISEs, in Europe and Alternative Staffing Organizations, ASOs, in the United States) which have emerged, in the shadow of this shift, to directly provide and/or create both standard and non-standard employment opportunities for hard-to-employ individuals (people with disabilities, ex-felons, the homeless, etc). Finally, we welcome papers addressing questions connected with the impact of the growth of non-standard employment on organizational practices and on the workers themselves.
Marketization of the Social: Strategies, Policies, and Implications
Organizers: Alexander Ebner, Patrick Sachweh
Among the defining features of recent transformations of Western European models of welfare capitalism is the growing significance of markets as a governance mechanism also in those societal spheres where non-market modes of coordination hitherto prevailed. Specifically, market mechanisms have become increasingly important in institutional fields previously permeated by hierarchical modes of governance set by the state. Examples include the liberalization of public infrastructure services (telecommunications, railway systems), the development of “welfare markets” in social policy (health care, old age pensions), and the introduction of activation policies leading to a recommodification of labour markets. Paradoxically, in the wake of the recent financial crisis we would not expect market mechanisms to have become discredited, as some observers seem to suggest in pointing to a renewed primacy of politics. Instead, following from the massive public debts governments across the OECD have amassed, we expect pressures towards further marketization to increase. Importantly, building on the work of Karl Polanyi we view current processes of market expansion not as a “natural” or “spontaneous” phenomenon but instead as a deliberate political shift in the ongoing transformation of Western welfare capitalisms – a “Great Transformation Redux” (Nancy Fraser). This mini-conference aims to analyse the causes, manifestations, societal implications, and paradoxes of contemporary processes of the “marketization of the social” from both theoretical and empirical angles. We particularly encourage submissions that address one or more of the following questions: How does marketization manifest itself across nations? Which specific societal spheres and institutional fields are being subjected to the governance of market mechanisms? What are the driving forces behind current forms of market expansion, and how is state-induced marketization being implemented? What are the societal consequences of marketization, and who are its winners and losers? Is the process of market expansion everywhere the same or does it unfold differently in different Varieties of Capitalism? What are the theoretical implications of market expansion for institutional typologies of different capitalisms?
China and Contemporary Capitalism: Political, Business and Socio-Economic Trends
Organizers: Douglas Fuller, Thomas Gold, Jean-Francois Huchet, Jenn-hwan Wang, Christopher McNally, Geny Piotti, Tobias ten Brink
China’s explosive economic growth and institutional reform over the last thirty years are confronting scholars of contemporary capitalism with two pressing questions. First, what are the institutional arrangements of China’s evolving capitalist system? Second, how does China’s capitalist system impact the formal and informal structures of global capitalism? Regarding the first question, this mini-conference examines the characteristics of Chinese capitalism by analyzing the organization of labor, capital and the state. At issue is how to characterize China’s capitalist system (cadre/state capitalism, guanxi capitalism, etc.) in order to place China’s capitalist system in comparative context. At the same time, we seek to avoid static representations of Chinese capitalism, so we wish to explore the actor-centered institutional dynamics of change within Chinese capitalism and its developmental policies, such as the prospects for rebalancing China’s economy from export growth toward a more domestically centered model. Moreover, we aim to understand China’s business environment and systems, especially the peculiar use of social networks and institutional innovations in state-owned enterprises, semi-private and private businesses, as well as in the practices of collaboration with foreign companies. Dealing with these issues leads us to questions of social and cultural changes associated with the introduction of capitalism in China; i.e., changes in consumption, lifestyles, social patterns of interaction and conceptions of the market in a nominally socialist system. Regarding the second question, the mini-conference welcomes work that addresses China’s impact on international standards (labor, technological, financial) and the global organization of production. We are interested in analyzing China in light of dynamic conceptions of the processes of institution building, maintenance and change.
Cultural and Creative Industries in the Global Economy
Organizers: Christel Lane, Anna Dempster
Paper proposals would focus on industries making products infused with cultural content, such as, for example, various types of text (advertising, television/film, publishing, music industry), fashion/designer clothing or haute cuisine food and wine. Proposals additionally would be concerned with how global markets impact on cultural content and the identities of those making cultural/culturally infused products. Contributions drawing on a variety of theoretical approaches would be welcome, including ‘cultural economy’ theory (exploring tensions between cultural and business orientations); economic sociology (sociology of markets and organizations; comparative capitalisms); political economy (including critiques of the relationship between capitalism and culture/employee creativity); and/or sociology of culture (e.g. theories of the globalization of culture and changing social identities). Themes cutting across industries could include: Reputation-Building in Markets for Experience Goods; Taste Makers in the Restaurant and Fashion Industries; Risk and Uncertainty in Product Markets/Innovation; Labour and Employment in the Face of Risk and Uncertainy.
Capitalism in Asia: Sustained Diversity or Increasing Coherence?
Organizers: Sebastien Lechevalier, Cornelia Storz
The varieties of capitalism approach started from theoretical and empirical research mainly inspired by the European and U.S. experience, focusing strongly on the difference between the Anglo-Saxon models and the European model(s) of capitalism. However, as has been highlighted in the simultaneous alteration of institutional settings and dynamic changes in the economic performance of post-communist transition countries and in East Asian countries, there is a need for a better understanding of the interrelationship between institutions and economic development. East Asia may be understood as an especially interesting testing ground for the varieties of capitalism approach, as underdeveloped (ex-)communist transition economies (China, Vietnam); newly industrializing economies in various stages of development (Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, etc.); and mature, highly industrialized, and increasingly service-oriented economies (Japan, South Korea) meet to create one of the most economically dynamic regions in the global system. Their heterogeneity may also help us toward a better understanding of how Asian countries have managed their respective paths. As the mini-conference intends to bring Asia into the discussion, it will reflect on the following, hitherto underresearched questions: is there an “Asian” model, or, put differently, which varieties exist in Asia and how do we analytically integrate their diversity within different countries, especially China? What are the triggering factors? What role do complementarities in dynamic paths and endogenous and exogenous pressures (i.e., imitating neoliberal models) play in inducing more coherence? Which patterns can we expect in the future, and why?
The Rise and Decline of Neoliberalism: Scientific Communities, Political Technocracy, and Regulatory Regimes
Organizers: Dieter Plehwe, David Levi-Faur, David Miller
The transformation of capitalism in the last three decades has been driven at least partly by neoliberal reform strategies. Notions of competitive statehood have been strengthened at the expense of solidarity norms prevalent during the previous age of embedded liberalism. If market failure were the constitutive paradigm of the original age of regulatory reform and the welfare state, state failure can be regarded as the paradoxical Leitmotiv of the rise of neoliberalism. Resulting varieties of capitalist governance at various levels (sector, national, EU, global etc.) are currently on trial due to the global financial and economic crisis. But the crisis at the same time has revealed a surprising lack of alternatives, little by way of regulatory imagination, developmental strategies and social solidarity. In the face of apparent contradictions and pathologies of the neoliberal strategies scholars are invited to revisit the history of state, social and economic reform in order to help better understanding conditions of reforms that may move more expressly beyond previous concerns with market or state failure in the future. Proposals for panels might be designed to revisit the history and theories of the state and regulation in general, and the role of intellectual and institutional entrepreneurship involved in the rise and climax of neoliberalism in particular. Proposals are encouraged that will contrast and more closely examine competing regulatory belief systems, paradigms, and policy ideas in conjunction with changing institutional circumstances, interest groups and other constituencies, organizational landscapes (academic research institutes, think tanks, networks etc.) and the concomitant composition of regulatory communities and elites.
Development in Crisis
Organizers: Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, Aaron Major
Prevailing models of economic development have fared poorly when confronted with economic crises. Laissez-faire gave way to Keynesianism in the wake of the global crisis of the 1920s and 1930s, and Keynesianism was quickly discredited by the advocates for a neoliberal approach to economic development in the wake of the crisis of the 1970s. New calls for enhanced government oversight of financial markets seemed to signal the death knell of neoliberalism; at the same time, neoliberal development models appear to be strikingly resilient in the face of the global financial crisis of 2008, as witnessed by the European Union’s successful effort to force the Greek government to adopt a broad package of austerity measures in exchange for debt assistance. In developing countries, the UNCTAD has recently called for more attention to domestic markets, but many countries are still committed to the promotion of exports and orthodox stabilization. We invite papers from a variety of perspectives that address the rise – and decline – of models of development during times of economic crisis. While models of development are necessarily ideational, and ideological, we are interested in the nexus of social forces and institutional structures that explain the rise, diffusion, consolidation and demise of models of development. Though we are particularly interested in processes unfolding during the current economic crisis, we are also interested in papers that shed light on these questions through historical analysis of earlier periods of crisis. While the mini-conference will have its own sessions, we aim to also promote similar topics in the network on Globalization and Socio-Economic Development.
Featured Events
Madrid Featured Speakers
Maria Angeles Duran
Maria-Angeles Duran is professor of sociology and research professor at the Council for Research of Spain (Economy Department). She has been president of the Spanish Federation of Sociology (FES), member of the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association (ISA), and visiting scholar or researcher at the universities of Michigan (ISR), Rio de Janeiro (PUC), Cambridge, U. of Washington (Seattle) and European Institute of Florence.
She has published on social structure, sociology of health, work, family and gender. Among others, the books: “Unpaid work in the global economy” (2011), “Methodology of research on time use” (2010), “The value of time” (2007), “The invisible costs of sickness” (2002).
She has received one of the main scientific prizes in Spain, the National Award for Research in Social Sciences. She is Doctor Honoris Causa by the Autonomous University of Madrid.
Luciano Coutinho
President of the Brazilian National Development Bank and University of Campinas
Jens Beckert
Jens Beckert is the director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany. His main research field is economic sociology, particularly the correlation between economic processes and the social and cultural structures in which economic action is embedded. In recent years his work has focused on the role of expectations in economic decision-making and for capitalist development. In coming years this focus will shift to research on wealth and social inequality, building upon my earlier work on inheritance law. He is the author of numerous and influential articles and books in the field, including Imagined Futures. Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics (Harvard University Press 2016) and Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy (edited with Richard Bronk) (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Karin Knorr Cetina
Karin Knorr Cetina is Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Principal Investigator of a comparative project on scopic media at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and an affiliated member of the Institute for World Society Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany. She also holds a honorary doctorate of the University of Luzern, Switzerland, and was previously President of the Society for Social Studies of Science and Section and Chair of the Theory Section of the ASA. Dr. Knorr Cetinapublished extensively in the area of economic sociology and finance, and in the area of science and technology studies. Her writings include “Global Microstructures: The Virtual Societies of Financial Markets” (with Urs Bruegger, American Journal of Sociology, 2002 Winner of the Theory Prize of the Theory Section of the American Sociological Association) the Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Finance (edited with A. Preda, 2012) and the book Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Harvard UP 2003, winner of the Robert K. Merton price and the Ludwick Fleck Price of the ASA). She just finished a book on the currency market (Synthetic Markets: The Currency Market as a Media-Institutional Form, forthcoming) and is currently conducting research on agentic media in finance and other areas.
Charles Sabel
Professor of Law and Social Science Columbia Law School, New York
Featured Panelists
Charles Sabel
Professor of Law and Social Science Columbia Law School, New York
Eric Thun
O: Global Value Chains
He is the Peter Moores University Lecturer in Chinese Business Studies at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. A political scientist by training, Thun’s research focuses on issues of industrial development in China. He is the author Changing Lanes in China: Foreign Direct Investment, Local Governments and Auto Sector Development. His current project analyzes the dynamics of competition between indigenous and foreign firms in China’s domestic market.
David Levi-Faur
David Levi-Faur (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is a Professor for Political Science and Public Policy. He is currently the chair of the Federmann School of Public Policy and hold joint appointment with the Department of Political Science of the Hebrew University. He held research and teaching positions at the University of Haifa, the University of Oxford, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Australian National University and the University of Manchester. He held visiting positions in the London School of Economics, the University of Amsterdam, University of Utrecht and University of California (Berkeley). His work includes special issues of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (The Global Diffusion of Regulatory Capitalism, co-edited with Jacint Jordana) and Governance (Varieties of Regulatory Capitalism). More recently he acted as editor of the he Oxford Handbook of Governance (OUP, 2012) and The Handbook of the Politics of Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2011). For the last nine years is also a co-founding editor of Regulation & Governance, a journal that serves as a leading platform for the study of regulation and governance in the social sciences.
Sigrid Quack
D: Professions and Professionals in a Globalizing World
Sigrid Quack is Director of the Centre for Global Cooperation Research and Professor of Comparative Sociology at the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Previously, she was Leader of the Research Group on Institution Building across Borders at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne and for many years a Senior Researcher at the WZB Social Science Center Berlin. She has been a visiting fellow at the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (SCORE); the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, Providence; the École Normal Supérieure Cachan; and St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge.
Sigrid has written widely on globalization and institutional change, transnational governance, professions and expertise, as well as previously on the comparative analysis of capitalism, gender relations, labour markets and employment systems. Among other publications, Sigrid has co-edited two volumes with Marie-Laure Djelic on Transnational Communities (Cambridge University Press) and Globalization and Institutions (Edward Elgar). She has published articles in Accounting, Organizations and Society;Annual Review of Sociology; Cambridge Journal of Economics; Global Policy; Organization Studies; Revista de Administração de Empresas; Review of International Political Economy; Socio-Economic Review and Theory and Society. Her most recent German book (co-edited with Schulz-Schaeffer, Shire and Weiß) explores forms and regulations of transnational work and labour markets (Transnationale Arbeit, VS Springer). Sheis currently working on two major projects: organized creativity and intellectual property rights in pharma and music; and imagined pathways to global cooperation in transnational governance.
Sigrid Quack has been a member of SASE since 2006. She is a co-organizer of Network D: Professions and Professionals in a Globalizing World, has served on the Executive Council since 2014, on the SER Best Prize Committee in 2016 and 2018 and on the Diversity Committee in 2019.
Photo by Georg Lukas / KHK/GCR21
Jonathan Zeitlin
L: Regulation and Governance
Jonathan Zeitlin is Professor of Public Policy and Governance , and Distinguished Faculty Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences (FMG) at the University of Amsterdam.
Professor Zeitlin holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European and Transnational Governance from the European Commission (2011-14). He is also a member of the steering committee of the Political Economy and Transnational Governance (PETGOV) research programme of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR).
Mari Sako
O: Global Value Chains
She is a professor of Management Studies at Saïd Business School, University for Oxford. Her research focuses on the connection between global corporate strategy, comparative business systems and human resource management, and understanding how business enterprises are governed in different ways in different locations, with specific attention to human resources and supply chains.
Richard Locke
Richard Locke is the Alvin J. Siteman (1948) Professor of Entrepreneurship, Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Howard R. Swearer Director of the Watson Institute for International Studies as well as a professor of political science at Brown University. In July, 2015, he was named the 13th Provost of Brown University.
Locke has been a consistent voice for integrating social and economic concerns into curriculum and research. His teaching case on Nike’s response to NGO pressures to address labor standards of Nike contractors was selected for teaching at MIT Sloan’s 50th Anniversary Convocation. His work also has had an impact on Nike’s business practices, helping the company to integrate reporting and auditing labor conditions with its quality improvement efforts.
Locke was named a 2005 Faculty Pioneer in Academic Leadership by the Aspen Institute. Along with MIT Sloan colleagues, he spearheaded the development of the Laboratory for Sustainable Business (S-Lab). This course seeks to provide students with in-depth knowledge of the various sustainability issues society faces today; a set of analytical tools and frameworks that will help them understand and analyze as well as impact these issues; and experience working with a firm or organization currently developing new business models—or reforming existing ones—in line with sustainable development. Locke also pioneered the popular Global Entrepreneurship Laboratory, a course that teaches students about entrepreneurship in developing countries by placing them in internships with startups in an array of companies in various emerging markets. As a result of this work, Locke was awarded the MIT Class of 1960 Teaching Innovation Award in 2007 and the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching in June 2008.
Locke is currently working on several projects related to globalization and labor standards. His publications include Remaking the Italian Economy (Cornell University Press, 1995, 1997); with Thomas Kochan and Michael Piore, Employment Relations in a Changing World Economy (MIT Press, 1995); and with Paul Osterman, Thomas Kochan, and Michael Piore, Working in America (MIT Press, 2001). He also has published numerous articles in Politics & Society, the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the European Journal of Industrial Relations, and Stato E Mercato.
Locke holds a BA from Wesleyan University, an MA in education from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in political science from MIT.
Jerald Hage
Michael Piore
Santos Ruesga
M: the Spanish Language Network
Santos Ruesga is Professor of Applied Economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He has taught in numerous academic centers in multiple countries in Europe (Spain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc.), North America (Mexico and USA), Latin America (Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, etc.), and Asia (China and Japan). As a researcher in socio-economics, he has specialized in the study of labor relations, the informal economy, and Latin American economies, from macroeconomic and empirical perspectives. On these topics, he has published a large number of books and articles in academic and professional journals and has participated in more than a hundred international and national scientific congresses. He is also a prolific organizer of scientific events, serving on numerous scientific councils at international congresses and meetings, and participating in more than a dozen editorial and advisory boards of scientific journals in various countries.
Likewise, he dedicates a significant intellectual effort to the work of knowledge transfer, having given numerous lectures, written several hundred newspaper articles, carried out technical reports (European Union, Spanish Government, World Bank, etc.), advised public and private organizations, and organized multiple informative events.
He was a member of the Superior Council of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy for ten years (2000-2010) and was Vice Chairman of the Menéndez Pelayo International University of Spain (200-2004). Currently, he leads a Research Group named Labour Socioeconomics, which brings together researchers from various countries.
He has been a member of the SASE since 2006; served on SASE’s Executive Council between 2012 and 2018; founded and coordinated its Ibero-American regional meetings (UNAM-Mexico-2013; UFRGS-Porto Alegre-Brazil, 2015; UTB-Cartagena de Indias – Colombia, 2017; UNC-Costa Rica- 2019; UNMSM-Peru-2021); served as local organizer of the 22nd SASE Annual Meeting (Madrid, 2011); and has been co-organizer of Network M (Spanish Language) since 2010.
Clemente Ruiz Durán
Clemente Ruiz Durán holds a PhD in Economics from Pittsburgh University (1975) and a Masters from the University of Uppsala, Sweden (1971). In 2004 he received the doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Baja California. He currently serves as a full-time professor at the Faculty of Economics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and member level III of the National System of Researchers (SNI). He has written more than 120 papers, author of 17 books and coordinator of 10, with works such as “Targeting policies and structural requirements to reduce informality” in the book coordinated by Martínez Soria titled “Informality:legislative implications and public policies to reduce it”. He has collaborated with international institutions such as United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Inter-American Development Bank (BID), United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and World Bank. He has collaborated with national institutions such as Ministry of Labour and Social Security (Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Socia, STPS), Ministry of Social Development (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social), Ministry of Economy (Secretaría de Economía), Ministry of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública), National Savings Bank (Banco del Ahorro Nacional), among others. His main research lines are the following:
- Regional development, taxation and democracy
- Complexity, and economic diversification
- Mexican economy
- Labor economics
- Informal labor markets
- Migration
- Industrial Policy
- Financial inclusion
Natasha Iskander
Natasha Iskander is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. She conducts research on labor migration and its relationship to economic development, with an emphasis on processes of institutional innovation and organizational learning. Her recent award-wining book, entitled Creative State: Forty Years of Migration and Development Policy in Morocco and Mexico (Cornell University Press: 2010), examines how the governments of Mexico and Morocco elaborated policies to build a link between labor emigration and local economic development. Her current project investigates how international migration acts as a vehicle for human capital development, knowledge generation, and industry renewal. Empirically, she has focused on Mexican migrants in the US and Mexican construction industries. Additionally, Dr. Iskander examines the impact on rapid rural-to-urban migration on the provision of urban water and sanitation, and its relationship to climate change. She holds PhD in Management and a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a BA in Cultural Studies from Stanford University.
Featured Speakers
Joseph Wong
Michelle Holder
Erin A. Cech