In response to global and technological challenges, this important book highlights the continuing diversity of national institutional reconfigurations and policy reforms from an institutional economics perspective.

Contents: Introduction and Overview Wolfram Elsner and Hardy Hanappi PART I: VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM, VARIETIES OF THE GLOBAL FIRM AND VARIETIES OF REGULATION 1. Varieties of Capitalism: Theoretical Critique and Empirical Observations Stefan Kesting and Klaus Nielsen 2. State Formation and the Construction and Maintenance of Institutions for Economic Growth in the West and the East, 1415–1846 Patrick O’Brien 3. Contemporary Capitalisms and Internationalisation: From One Diversity to Another Charlie Dannreuther and Pascal Petit 4. Towards an Historically Relevant Economics of the Firm Michael Dietrich and Jackie Krafft 5. The Export of Varieties of Capitalism: The Cases of Wal-Mart and IKEA Sue Konzelmann, Frank Wilkinson, Charles Craypo and Rabih Aridi 6. Modern Economic Predation: War, Corporate Fraud and the Cruel Chimera of Labour Market Reform James K. Galbraith 7. A New Global Military–Terrorism–Hegemony Social Structure of Accumulation For Long–Wave Upswing? Phillip Anthony O’Hara PART II: THE (WELFARE) STATE, THE NEW ECONOMY AND NEW INSTITUTIONAL DEALS 8. New Deals of New Social Entities. Evolution of Old Friends: Workers – Firms – Classes – States Michael Scheibenreif and Hardy Hanappi 9. The Death of the Family? Evolution of a New Deal Between Biological and Social Reproduction Hardy Hanappi and Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger 10. Small Businesses – The Solution For What and For Whom? Elisabeth Sundin 11. Building on the Micro–Meso–Macro Evolutionary Framework: The Stakes for the Analysis of Clusters of Innovation Olivier Brette and Caroline Mehier 12. The New Economy, Innovation Policies, and the Role of Organised Labour Frank Gerlach 13. Social Innovation Between Local and Global Frank Moulaert and Jacques Nussbaumer PART III: AN ECONOMICS FOR A NEW ECONOMY? 14. A New Economics of Complementarity, Increasing Returns and Planning Horizons Frederic B. Jennings 15. Taking Economics to Bed: About the Pitfalls and Possibilities of Cultural Economics Robbert Maseland 16. Almost Everything You Would Like to Know About Technology and Growth and You Will Never Be Told By Neo-Schumpeterians George Liagouras 17. Economics Remains the Same – Or Does It? Challenges of the New Economy Jorma Sappinen and Kalevi Kyläheiko Index

'This collection of essays goes well beyond the technical exercises that have become standard in complexity modeling and brings to life in a very accessible and pragmatic way economists' growing concern with contingency, institutions, history, variety, information, power and policy. This is an important book for those interested in the likely future direction of economic methodology and policy modeling.'