What do we value? For markets to operate and for economies to grow, producers must attract purchasers to the products they offer. In advanced capitalist economies, market saturation and decline of demand are constant threats to markets. But how do we understand why actors desire the things whose...

Seit Anfang der 1970er-Jahre lässt sich eine graduelle Verschärfung der fiskalischen Situation moderner Staaten beobachten. Chronisch gewordene Defizite und eine dramatisch gestiegene Staatsverschuldung sind zu einer beherrschenden Rahmenbedingung wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Politik geworden. Das...

This essay reviews the development of approaches within the comparative capitalisms (CC) literature and points to three theoretical innovations which, taken together, define and distinguish these approaches as a group. First, national economies are characterized by distinct institutional...

Both the varieties of capitalism school (VOC) and regulation theory (RT) address the issue of how and why capitalisms differ. If VOC challenges the primacy of liberal market economies (LME) and stresses the existence of an alternative form, i.e. coordinated market economies (CME), RT starts from...

Dieser Aufsatz greift die in den Siebzigerjahren entwickelten Argumente zur "Unregierbarkeit" einerseits und zum "Spätkapitalismus" andererseits auf und befragt sie nach ihrer heutigen Relevanz. Beide Denkschulen erkannten eine Überforderung des Staats. Während linke Autoren die Ursache in...

Following up on recent debates about sectoral systems of innovation and production, the paper introduces a heuristic framework for analyzing and explaining distinct patterns of technology-based sectoral change. The concept is based on two interrelated influencing factors. The first is the...

This article challenges the methodological nationalism of the convergence debate by arguing that multilevel governance destabilizes the coalitions thought to underpin liberal and coordinated varieties of capitalism. Existing efforts to explain how coherent production regimes emerge and persist...

As economic internationalization advances, the question of how firms cope with increasing pressure for competitiveness gains momentum. While scholars agree that firms need a competitive advantage, they debate whether firms exploit the comparative advantage of their economy and converge on that...