Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets

This book challenges the prevailing idea that labor markets are governed by universal economic processes. The author argues instead that labor markets develop in tandem with social and political institutions, and thus function in locally specific ways. Drawing on a critical reading of segmentation and regulation theory, the book examines ways that the spatially uneven development of labor markets affects work structure, job security, and labor relations in different regions. Peck integrates labor market theory with empirical case studies, laying the theoretical groundwork for an alternative regulatory agenda which might deprioritize short-term cost-effectiveness in favor of social protection, improved working conditions, and negotiated worker involvement

Jamie Peck is reader in economic geography and member of the International Centre for Labour Studies at the University of Manchester. He has published extensively on labor market theory, regional economic restructuring, employment policy evaluation, and the geopolitics of economic governance and social regulation. A research associate of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, his research has been supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the European Science Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund (New York), and the Australian government, while he has consulted to the European Commission, the UK Department of Employment, and numerous local authorities, labor unions, and economic development agencies. He is currently researching the political economy of "welfare reform" on a Harkness Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.