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Three of the five major concerns of class analysts over time are completely neglected by Grusky and Weeden. With respect to the two others, a substitution of their research agenda for existent kinds of research is more likely to impoverish than to enrich our knowledge. A supplement of penetrating occupational studies, on the other hand, would be a welcome addition. The most promising research agenda for scholars interested in class, it seems to me, is to take a direction opposite to local occupational shrinking. That is, into comparative studies, across the periods and the continents of the modern era, of class and non-class discursive and political strategies and cultural receptions, and into investigations of the interfaces of national socio-economic cleavages, institutions and distributive processes, on the one hand, and global or transnational flows, entanglements, and historical preconditioning, on the other. Social science and social action, in general, would bene. t from a widening of class analysis, beyond 19th-century economic theory – or its recasting into neoclassical rent seeking – beyond the assumptions of European industrial society, beyond the national self-limitation of post-World War II sociology, and beyond the times when the world was either real or nominal, and discourse and discursive (de-) constructions were unheard of. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, recent research on the economics of institutions is summarized and assessed. The economics of institutions is an attempt to integrate recent research in various sub-fields of economics and the other social sciences in order to present a coherent research program for exploring the link between institutions and wealth. Although the core of the framework is a modified version of neo-classical economics, it is argued that the optimal deviation from the neo-classical model varies with the level of analysis and the types of variables that we seek to endogenize. The unifying theme of the analysis is the introduction of transaction costs and the related concept of property rights, which give organizations and institutions a central role in economic life. The paper provides a summary view of the economics of institutions, and discusses in some detail two common lines of criticism: that the approach ignores power relationships in economic affairs, and that its use of the rational choice model is inappropriate. The need for augmenting the economics of institution with an operational theory of mental models and learning is recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The awarding of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Economics to Gary Becker draws attention to Becker's outstanding work in economics. At the same time, it draws attention to a new phenomenon, for which Becker himself is more responsible than anyone else: the use of basic principles of economics to address problems in sociology. Much of the work for which Becker is best known treats problems that are quite outside the field of economics proper and fully within the field of sociology. What is striking about this is that Becker remains committed to the explanatory logic of neo-classical economics; he applies that logic uncompromisingly, using the same tools in examining marriage markets as in examining financial markets. In this paper, some of Becker's work on sociological problems are discussed and assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores issues concerning economic sociology during the paradigm crisis. The neo-Marxists have contributed in a substantial way to the renewal of several areas in economic sociology. Two areas where their influence has been felt very strongly are industrial sociology and stratification theory. Certain aspects of the Marxist debate on the state are also of interest to economic sociology. In mainstream American sociology the analysis of female wage labor was practically non-existent. If it was not the family that was being discussed, women simply became `invisible' (e.g. Acker 1973, Oakley 1974, March 1982). An important contribution to economic sociology by feminist social scientists has thus been to initiate research on female wage labor as well as stratification studies which include women. interesting empirical work has been carried out on women working iii a variety of social settings (see e.g. Segal & Berhaide 1979 for some of these studies). The key roles in this development were played by three popular movements which all had a social scientific side to them: neo-Marxism, `second wave' feminism, and Third World theory. On a series of points these three movements showed that `economy' and `society' are organically interconnected and cannot be analyzed as if they are essentially separate phenomena.