Thorstein Veblen was a multidisciplinary social scientist whose original insights continue to inspire debate. Rather than focusing on allocation, markets and scarcity, his perspective on economics was rather one of Darwinian evolution and perpetual development, unfolding conventions and interpersonal constraints. This interdisciplinary and comprehensive book determines that Veblen's disparate theories of conspicuous consumption, imperial Germany, the giant corporation and the speculation-led cycle all add up to a consistent and coherent world-view.

Individuals make decisions but they do not do so in a social vacuum. The goods they buy are frequently status-symbols in a zero-sum game which some will win and some must lose. Their consumption of commodities is subject to the constraint that what one can do, all cannot. The pressure of coalitions and interest groups, the self- interest of politicians and bureaucrats may all work against a solution being found for some of the most urgent social and economic problems of our times. These problems form the centrepiece of the economic approach to social interaction that has been pioneered by...

Once exports and imports meant agriculture and industry. Today, in the global economy and the electronic age, trade is also expanding into the service sector. This timely book closely examines trade in health. Professor David Reisman offers a comprehensive and searching multidisciplinary account of the way in which medical services, patients, capital and professionals make up a global healthcare economy that crosses borders. Combining theory and empirical evidence from economics, tourism, and medical care, scholars involved in health economics and social administration will find much of...

A collection of ten classic texts of 20th-century British political economy. The texts deal with managed capitalism, the welfare state and the middle ground, and should promote readers' understanding of British politics and economic ideology in the years since the Great Depression.

A collection of ten classic texts of 20th-century British political economy. The texts deal with managed capitalism, the welfare state and the middle ground, and should promote readers' understanding of British politics and economic ideology in the years since the Great Depression.

A collection of ten classic texts of 20th-century British political economy. The texts deal with managed capitalism, the welfare state and the middle ground, and should promote readers' understanding of British politics and economic ideology in the years since the Great Depression.

A collection of ten classic texts of 20th-century British political economy. The texts deal with managed capitalism, the welfare state and the middle ground, and should promote readers' understanding of British politics and economic ideology in the years since the Great Depression.

A collection of ten classic texts of 20th-century British political economy. The texts deal with managed capitalism, the welfare state and the middle ground, and should promote readers' understanding of British politics and economic ideology in the years since the Great Depression.

A collection of ten classic texts of 20th-century British political economy. The texts deal with managed capitalism, the welfare state and the middle ground, and should promote readers' understanding of British politics and economic ideology in the years since the Great Depression.