As a space of exchange that transcends historic jurisdictions, the Internet lacks a dominant security provider. This research examines how and why firms in platform capitalism have developed their own method and means of protection. ‘Trust and Safety’ (T&S) is a novel division of labour that has become nearly ubiquitous in the industry, encompassing many of the concerns raised about the influence of technology on politics, society and economy. The making of capitalist exchange online requires a similarly discrete making of protection beyond the state. T&S work ensures that interaction and exchange are sheltered, doing so by curating trust between atomized individuals, and asserting what belongs and what does not. T&S’ centrality to platform capitalism can be explained—in part—by Weber’s notion of the city as market–fortress; a spatialized condition of exchange protection that is foundational for fastening capitalism together and seeking to make it, and inequality, inevitable.
{"title":"‘Trust and safety’: exchange, protection and the digital market–fortress in platform capitalism","authors":"Graham Denyer Willis","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 As a space of exchange that transcends historic jurisdictions, the Internet lacks a dominant security provider. This research examines how and why firms in platform capitalism have developed their own method and means of protection. ‘Trust and Safety’ (T&S) is a novel division of labour that has become nearly ubiquitous in the industry, encompassing many of the concerns raised about the influence of technology on politics, society and economy. The making of capitalist exchange online requires a similarly discrete making of protection beyond the state. T&S work ensures that interaction and exchange are sheltered, doing so by curating trust between atomized individuals, and asserting what belongs and what does not. T&S’ centrality to platform capitalism can be explained—in part—by Weber’s notion of the city as market–fortress; a spatialized condition of exchange protection that is foundational for fastening capitalism together and seeking to make it, and inequality, inevitable.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47319937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The term ‘regulatory capture’ is frequently invoked to describe dysfunctional government institutions. In its casual use, it refers to a phenomenon in which regulations benefit regulated industries, rather than public interests. However, as an analytical concept, social scientists have struggled to empirically identify and define the processes in which capture emerges and sustains. In this article, I outline a cultural framework for regulatory capture by linking cultural sociology and the faces of power to existing capture theory. Through an ethnographic case study of digital trade provisions in international trade agreements, I show how capture occurs through the construction and manipulation of ‘public interests’. I trace how capture (a) emerges when industry lobbyists extend existing schemas of a policy network into new frames and (b) is institutionalized into regulatory agencies when policymakers adopt and enact these frames into knowledge production and law. Thus, capture appears through a veneer of consensus, which suppresses alternative interests and policy outcomes.
{"title":"Regulatory capture’s third face of power","authors":"Wendy Y Li","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The term ‘regulatory capture’ is frequently invoked to describe dysfunctional government institutions. In its casual use, it refers to a phenomenon in which regulations benefit regulated industries, rather than public interests. However, as an analytical concept, social scientists have struggled to empirically identify and define the processes in which capture emerges and sustains. In this article, I outline a cultural framework for regulatory capture by linking cultural sociology and the faces of power to existing capture theory. Through an ethnographic case study of digital trade provisions in international trade agreements, I show how capture occurs through the construction and manipulation of ‘public interests’. I trace how capture (a) emerges when industry lobbyists extend existing schemas of a policy network into new frames and (b) is institutionalized into regulatory agencies when policymakers adopt and enact these frames into knowledge production and law. Thus, capture appears through a veneer of consensus, which suppresses alternative interests and policy outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49509651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Advances in measuring poverty in non-monetary terms enable governments to track social progress on ends, the things that societies value doing and being. Using a national-level regression-based empirical strategy, this research demonstrates the magnitude of previously unmeasured policy effects on material deprivation, a non-monetary indicator of poverty. We apply this methodology to a comparative microdata set covering 32 European countries and estimate the average marginal effect of a small universal income increase on material deprivation. We illustrate the impact of the income transfer from various policy angles commonly used when analyzing the poverty reduction effects of social transfers. We show how impacts vary with characteristics such as country and household deprivation levels and the type of social transfers received. The methodology enables an analysis of the redistributive impact of social transfers on non-monetary social outcomes and is also suitable for other non-monetary social outcomes such as housing deprivation and food insecurity.
{"title":"Reducing poverty and social exclusion in Europe: estimating the marginal effect of income on material deprivation","authors":"Geranda Notten, Anne-Catherine Guio","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Advances in measuring poverty in non-monetary terms enable governments to track social progress on ends, the things that societies value doing and being. Using a national-level regression-based empirical strategy, this research demonstrates the magnitude of previously unmeasured policy effects on material deprivation, a non-monetary indicator of poverty. We apply this methodology to a comparative microdata set covering 32 European countries and estimate the average marginal effect of a small universal income increase on material deprivation. We illustrate the impact of the income transfer from various policy angles commonly used when analyzing the poverty reduction effects of social transfers. We show how impacts vary with characteristics such as country and household deprivation levels and the type of social transfers received. The methodology enables an analysis of the redistributive impact of social transfers on non-monetary social outcomes and is also suitable for other non-monetary social outcomes such as housing deprivation and food insecurity.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134921744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rising wealth inequality and squeezed public budgets has brought wealth tax back into policy discussions. A net wealth tax might help to boost state revenue and reduce wealth inequality. Yet little is known about citizens’ attitudes towards the design of a net wealth tax (i.e. the tax unit, exemption and rate). Using a novel multifactorial survey experiment, we examine citizens’ endorsement of fundamental principles of taxation. Building on policy feedback theory, we examine if preferences differ in three policy arenas (USA, Germany and UK) and whether individuals’ reasoning is dependent on self-interest. While a clear majority in all three countries generally endorses a wealth tax, our findings show that citizens care more about the amount exempted than the tax unit or rate. We do not identify a preference for any specific tax unit. Furthermore, tax preferences seem to be strikingly similar among citizens of all three countries. Yet we show that individuals are mostly concerned about not being personally affected by such a tax, which is reflected in their preference for substantial exemptions. We discuss our findings with regard to our understanding of wealth inequality, tax equity and the potential implications for policymakers.
{"title":"Tax principles, policy feedback and self-interest: cross-national experimental evidence on wealth tax preferences","authors":"Manuel Schechtl, Daria Tisch","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwac071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac071","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Rising wealth inequality and squeezed public budgets has brought wealth tax back into policy discussions. A net wealth tax might help to boost state revenue and reduce wealth inequality. Yet little is known about citizens’ attitudes towards the design of a net wealth tax (i.e. the tax unit, exemption and rate). Using a novel multifactorial survey experiment, we examine citizens’ endorsement of fundamental principles of taxation. Building on policy feedback theory, we examine if preferences differ in three policy arenas (USA, Germany and UK) and whether individuals’ reasoning is dependent on self-interest. While a clear majority in all three countries generally endorses a wealth tax, our findings show that citizens care more about the amount exempted than the tax unit or rate. We do not identify a preference for any specific tax unit. Furthermore, tax preferences seem to be strikingly similar among citizens of all three countries. Yet we show that individuals are mostly concerned about not being personally affected by such a tax, which is reflected in their preference for substantial exemptions. We discuss our findings with regard to our understanding of wealth inequality, tax equity and the potential implications for policymakers.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48158849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract When crises hit, social theory predicts increased hostility toward immigrants. We exploit the Covid-19 pandemic as a unique exogenous crisis and examine whether discrimination increased in its wake. Repeating a field experiment in the Swiss housing market in 2018 and 2020, we find no evidence of increased discrimination against the most important immigrant groups in Switzerland. Contrarily, when uncertainty dominates the market, proprietors appear to change their selection behavior by substituting signals of ethnicity for other markers of solvency and reliability and, consequently, invitation rates for immigrants increase relative to native house-hunters. We conclude that crises do not necessarily increase discriminatory behavior in market situations.
{"title":"No sign of increased ethnic discrimination during a crisis: evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic","authors":"Daniel Auer, Didier Ruedin, Eva Van Belle","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwac069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac069","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When crises hit, social theory predicts increased hostility toward immigrants. We exploit the Covid-19 pandemic as a unique exogenous crisis and examine whether discrimination increased in its wake. Repeating a field experiment in the Swiss housing market in 2018 and 2020, we find no evidence of increased discrimination against the most important immigrant groups in Switzerland. Contrarily, when uncertainty dominates the market, proprietors appear to change their selection behavior by substituting signals of ethnicity for other markers of solvency and reliability and, consequently, invitation rates for immigrants increase relative to native house-hunters. We conclude that crises do not necessarily increase discriminatory behavior in market situations.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135594782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study investigates the hourly wage gap between 25- and 55-year-old temporary and permanent employees across 30 countries worldwide based on Luxembourg Income Study data from 2000 to 2019 supplemented by other survey data. Two-stage multilevel regressions reveal wage disadvantages for temporary workers, particularly for prime-age workers and those working in medium-/high-level occupations. There is no evidence that a stronger institutional dualization in terms of stronger employment protection for permanent contracts increases the wage gap. Instead partial deregulation matters: In countries where permanent workers are strongly protected, the wage gap is larger if the use of temporary contracts is deregulated. Moreover, results suggest that the larger the size of the temporary employment segment the larger the wage gap. Thus, our findings indicate that stronger institutional and structural labor market dualism amplifies labor market inequality in terms of wage gaps between temporary and permanent workers.
{"title":"Labor market dualism and the heterogeneous wage gap for temporary employment: a multilevel study across 30 countries","authors":"Sophia Fauser, M. Gebel","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwac072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac072","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study investigates the hourly wage gap between 25- and 55-year-old temporary and permanent employees across 30 countries worldwide based on Luxembourg Income Study data from 2000 to 2019 supplemented by other survey data. Two-stage multilevel regressions reveal wage disadvantages for temporary workers, particularly for prime-age workers and those working in medium-/high-level occupations. There is no evidence that a stronger institutional dualization in terms of stronger employment protection for permanent contracts increases the wage gap. Instead partial deregulation matters: In countries where permanent workers are strongly protected, the wage gap is larger if the use of temporary contracts is deregulated. Moreover, results suggest that the larger the size of the temporary employment segment the larger the wage gap. Thus, our findings indicate that stronger institutional and structural labor market dualism amplifies labor market inequality in terms of wage gaps between temporary and permanent workers.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44469928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jan Behringer, Martin Gonzalez-Granda, Till van Treeck
Abstract We ask why working hours in the rich world have not declined more sharply or even risen at times since the early 1980s, despite a steady increase in productivity, and why they vary so much across rich countries. We use an internationally comparable database on working hours (Bick et al., 2019) and conduct panel data estimations for a sample of 17 European countries and the USA over the period 1983–2019. We find that high or increasing top-end income inequality, decentralized labor relations, and limited government provision of education and other in-kind services contribute to long working hours. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that upward-looking status comparisons in positional consumption (‘Veblen effects’) contribute to a ‘rat race’ of long working hours that is more or less pronounced in different varieties of capitalism.
{"title":"Varieties of the rat race: working hours in the age of abundance","authors":"Jan Behringer, Martin Gonzalez-Granda, Till van Treeck","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwac067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac067","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We ask why working hours in the rich world have not declined more sharply or even risen at times since the early 1980s, despite a steady increase in productivity, and why they vary so much across rich countries. We use an internationally comparable database on working hours (Bick et al., 2019) and conduct panel data estimations for a sample of 17 European countries and the USA over the period 1983–2019. We find that high or increasing top-end income inequality, decentralized labor relations, and limited government provision of education and other in-kind services contribute to long working hours. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that upward-looking status comparisons in positional consumption (‘Veblen effects’) contribute to a ‘rat race’ of long working hours that is more or less pronounced in different varieties of capitalism.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135276892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Our First 20 Years","authors":"Ákos Róna-Tas, A. Guseva","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwad006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43014493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyzes the structure of socially embedded exchange under uncertainty in the context of a community currency system in Germany. We discuss three relational and path-dependent mechanisms—experience-based trust, networked reputation and public reputation—which serve as navigation practices to mitigate uncertainty. We furthermore associate these mechanisms with observable structures of exchange, namely repeated transactions and reciprocity, transitivity and provider activity, and discuss differences in product-inherent uncertainty as a source of variation in network structure. Based on original observations of more than 4000 transactions over a period of 8 years, we use relational event models to demonstrate that the history of transactions exhibits structure consistent with the three hypothesized mechanisms, with some variation across different types of transactions. This variation is partly in line with differences in product-inherent uncertainty, but we also discuss alternative sources of variation related to organizational and institutional conditions of the exchange system.
{"title":"Navigating uncertainty in networks of social exchange: a relational event study of a community currency system","authors":"Jakob Hoffmann, Johannes Glückler","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwac066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac066","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article analyzes the structure of socially embedded exchange under uncertainty in the context of a community currency system in Germany. We discuss three relational and path-dependent mechanisms—experience-based trust, networked reputation and public reputation—which serve as navigation practices to mitigate uncertainty. We furthermore associate these mechanisms with observable structures of exchange, namely repeated transactions and reciprocity, transitivity and provider activity, and discuss differences in product-inherent uncertainty as a source of variation in network structure. Based on original observations of more than 4000 transactions over a period of 8 years, we use relational event models to demonstrate that the history of transactions exhibits structure consistent with the three hypothesized mechanisms, with some variation across different types of transactions. This variation is partly in line with differences in product-inherent uncertainty, but we also discuss alternative sources of variation related to organizational and institutional conditions of the exchange system.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43892318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Whilst both the level and the make-up of public debt are high salience issues, the management of public debt seldom commands public attention. This study examines the quiet politics of public debt management in advanced capitalist societies, comparing debt management reforms and the everyday practice of debt management in Germany and the UK. We present evidence of two factors contributing to the political quietude around public debt management: a persistent absence of partisan contestation and conflict; and the dominance of ‘market discipline’ as an interpretative frame, which prevents changes in interest rates and debt servicing costs to be seen as the product of faulty debt management. We also find that this quietude creates a space for the coordination and cooperation between contemporary capitalist states and large dealer banks, whose capacities effectively to act within their respective domains depend on each other.
{"title":"The quiet side of debt: public debt management in advanced economies","authors":"Charlotte Rommerskirchen, Arjen W van der Heide","doi":"10.1093/ser/mwac070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac070","url":null,"abstract":"Whilst both the level and the make-up of public debt are high salience issues, the management of public debt seldom commands public attention. This study examines the quiet politics of public debt management in advanced capitalist societies, comparing debt management reforms and the everyday practice of debt management in Germany and the UK. We present evidence of two factors contributing to the political quietude around public debt management: a persistent absence of partisan contestation and conflict; and the dominance of ‘market discipline’ as an interpretative frame, which prevents changes in interest rates and debt servicing costs to be seen as the product of faulty debt management. We also find that this quietude creates a space for the coordination and cooperation between contemporary capitalist states and large dealer banks, whose capacities effectively to act within their respective domains depend on each other.","PeriodicalId":47947,"journal":{"name":"Socio-Economic Review","volume":"20 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138507472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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