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38626 results in Cambridge Textbooks

Page 1263 of 1932

  • 10 - Collective Prosperity: Wealth and Happiness

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 311-339

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter introduces well-being and happiness in general and particularly discusses the relationship between happiness and wealth. People strive for well-being, happiness, contentment and high quality of life. These factors are important socio-political measures at the country level as well. Empirical research on happiness and satisfaction has intensified in recent years and ‘positive psychology’ has become an important research trend. Periodic surveys of life satisfaction and satisfaction with specific areas of life are conducted, and determinants and consequences of satisfaction are investigated.

    The terms well-being, happiness, satisfaction and quality of life are often used synonymously. What is meant is a good, pleasant, either short-lived or long-lasting and more or less intensely perceived emotional state. However, sometimes these terms are defined and operationalised differently, making it difficult to compare the results of empirical studies. Sometimes one term encompasses the other, sometimes it does not. Sometimes the terms refer to processes, sometimes to outcomes. Attempts have been made to make a clear definitional distinction between various aspects of life satisfaction by differentiating between life chances versus life outcomes on the one hand, and between inner versus outer qualities on the other. Numerous proposals for measuring one or more dimensions of quality of life, satisfaction and well-being can be found in the social scientific literature. In addition to uni- and multidimensional instruments that collect data on respondents’ subjective views, external assessment instruments are often applied in health research. However, external assessments are controversial, given that well-being, satisfaction and quality of life represent subjective experiences. Therefore, surveys and time-sample diaries are frequently used to assess subjective evaluations of well-being and satisfaction. Nevertheless, none of the applied methods is free of biases and critique.

    National happiness indices vary considerably across countries. Since the highest values are measured in the Western industrialised world and the lowest in the third and fourth worlds, it can be assumed that satisfaction is correlated with economic prosperity. People in rich countries do tend to be more satisfied than people in poor countries, and rich people in industrialised countries are happier than poor people.

  • 2 - Decision-Making: Normative Models and Anomalies

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 26-62

  • Summary

    Overview

    Decision situations can be described by options involving consequences and probabilities, and information about these elements may be more or less available. The classical economic model of human behaviour assumes that decisions are driven by rationality and that utility maximisation is the goal. Rationality is first and foremost a formal principle of decisionmaking logic with a predominantly normative character. It presumes that decision-makers have preferences and that the alternative they ultimately choose is the one with the highest subjective utility. Classical decision models rely on the assumption that decision-makers have a high information processing capacity as well as the time and motivation to process such complex information.

    Empirical studies have demonstrated, however, that actual behaviour diverges from the predictions of classical decision models and shows systematic ‘anomalies’. Information processing capacity is limited and complex decision situations contain various sources of error. To name just a few examples, information is subjectively perceived and can be processed through different paths. The value decision-makers assign to an option changes with time, and with the associated emotions. When there is no opportunity to gather enough information, or insufficient time or motivation to do so, judgments are made on the basis of heuristics. Heuristics are decision rules that allow decision-makers to save time and energy. They can lead to suboptimal judgments in some cases because they are vulnerable to irrelevant factors. However, they can also lead to good judgments when they are used in a valid environment.

    Introduction

    Every day, people make a large number of decisions, important and less important ones. Some decisions are easy because their consequences are quite clear. Other decisions are hard, especially if consequences are uncertain. In some cases, people do not have the time, motivation or ability to process all information in order to analyse the entire situation. In other cases, their preferences seem to change with emotions or to change over time. People often use shortcuts, so-called heuristics, to simplify the logical and rational step-by-step process. The focus of this chapter is to show the classical, normative approach to decision-making and a number of so-called anomalies that stand in contrast to predictions from that approach.

    Decisions under Uncertainty

    Private households, companies and administrators all have to consider how to use their limited financial capital, energy, time and other resources sensibly.

  • 7 - Financial Markets: Risk and Investment

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 217-244

  • Summary

    Overview

    Financial markets worldwide conduct transactions running into billions, making them particularly important for individuals as well as national economies. Since financial markets, particularly stock exchanges, represent ideal markets, it can be assumed that decision-making there follows the laws of homo economicus, at least at the aggregate level. However, behavioural economics and financial psychology – particularly the psychology of the stock exchange – have substantiated that financial markets are also subject to psychological influences. Decision-making anomalies lead to outcomes diverging from those postulated by the homo economicus model, even at the aggregate level. For example, actors’ current moods are relevant in determining their expectations with regard to market trends; conversely, stock prices are also a reflection of current moods of actors on the market. Actors’ convictions with regard to their ability to control events are also often massively overblown. People frequently do not behave as the available factual information would suggest, but rather follow the crowd in a form of herding behaviour.

    This chapter provides an overview of psychological and behavioural-economical approaches to describe financial markets. It starts out with reactions to news, and information use by investors. It then moves to a systematic pattern of how investors treat stocks that have lost or gained in value, the disposition effect. Heuristics used by investors and financial managers will be discussed, using examples from both real-life financial markets and experiments. A particularly important part is heuristic risk diversification in investors’ portfolios. Emotions and mood also influence decisionmaking on financial markets. Of particular relevance are social influences, such as the herd behaviour that can frequently be observed in financial markets and that can lead to speculative bubbles. Finally, the role of trust in financial institutions will be discussed.

    Introduction

    The homo economicus is a rational thinking and self-interested human intent on maximising utility or profit. But is this idea applicable to humans in the context of financial markets? The goal is to understand how the seemingly irrational movements and fluctuations in the financial markets come to be – for example, the creation of speculative bubbles. These observations are hard to explain by rationality alone. For this reason, we expand our view to behavioural economics and psychology. Making the right decision is a difficult task, yet some traders are more successful than others. What are the mistakes traders make?

  • 8 - Collective Cooperation: Shadow Economy and Tax Paying

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 245-284

  • Summary

    Overview

    In the official economy, economic success is achieved within the framework of regulatory laws. Labour and capital income, consumption, etc. are taxed to provide public goods, to balance income differences in the society, and to regulate the behaviour of individuals and firms.However,money is also made in the shadows of the official economy, and some citizens do not pay taxes as prescribed by law.

    This chapter starts out with a discussion of the shadow economy. In the narrowest sense, the shadow economy comprises work on the black market and the exchange of goods there. In a broader sense, housework and helping one's neighbours also count – as do illegal activities like drug dealing, smuggling and dealing in stolen goods. In general, those activities are discussed that would otherwise be included in official calculations of the gross national product, but are concealed through the circumvention of regulations and the evasion of social contributions in general, and of taxes in particular.

    One particular problemanalysed by economic psychology concerns the willingness to pay taxes and fees. This can be partly described through attitudes towards taxes and tax morale. However, taxpayer behaviour can range from deliberate tax evasion to voluntary cooperation and needs to be examined more closely. Different actors can be distinguished in the field of taxation (government, tax authorities, tax accountants, taxpayers) and they interact in complex ways.Various research methods are applied in studying taxpayer behaviour and these sometimes produce inconsistent findings.

    Taxpaying can be researched within different paradigms. There has been a shift from investigations of the effect of tax authorities’ enforcement on taxpayer compliance towards investigations of trust-building measures that encourage cooperation for the welfare of the community. Perspectives range from the effectiveness of audits and fines, social norms and fairness considerations in social contribution dilemmas and the ‘psychological contract’ to the interactional climate where actors mutually influence each other. Over the past few decades, the predominant view of taxpayers has shifted from an authoritarian perspective, where authorities compel citizens to pay their taxes, to a view where authorities are encouraged to provide the necessary services to promote compliance, and, more recently, to a view where authorities and citizens cooperate with one another. The slippery slope framework is presented as a theoretical concept, integrating economic and psychological approaches to compliance and cooperation.

  • 5 - Consumer Markets: Purchasing and Credit Use

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 134-174

  • Summary

    Overview

    Economic decisions in private households are made by individuals, usually in collaboration with others. For instance, couples make economic decisions when they plan their next holiday, gather information about different ways to save money, or compare different credit opportunities.

    Economic decisions therefore are relevant tasks that can create problems for couples. It is not only because private households control the bulk of every country's total economic budget that these problems are of interest to the social and economic sciences. Economic decisions are simultaneously the cause of conflicts between partners, which can pose a threat to the quality of the relationship. Additionally, economic decisions are reflecting the quality of the relationship between partners.

    When ‘private households’, ‘romantic partners’, ‘married couples’ or ‘the family’ are mentioned, a decision-making unit consisting of two or more people is generally meant. These terms, of course, are not perfectly interchangeable. In its narrow sense, ‘the family’ is generally understood to mean a unit consisting of parents and their children. In its wider meaning, grandparents and other relatives can be added to this group. Decisions between partners relate to how two people think about deploying their financial resources. These partners are living together (whether with or without a marriage certificate) and have an intimate relationship with one another. Finally, a ‘private household’ refers to a group of people running a joint household who do not necessarily need to have an intimate relationship with one other. However, in this book these four terms are used rather indiscriminately: what is essential is that they refer to a decision-making unit consisting of two or more people who have a close relationship to one another and make joint decisions on the use of financial resources.

    After introducing a taxonomy of economic decision-making in private households, this chapter will turn to a discussion of models of individual decision-making before moving to a process model of purchasing decisions in those households. When partners have differing opinions, decisional conflicts can arise which need to be resolved. The conflict resolution process depends not only on the type of conflict but also on the harmony of the relationship and existing power relations between the partners. In a complex process model, the progression from the beginning of a purchasing decision up to its conclusion is outlined.

  • Preface

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp xv-xvii

  • Summary

    The purpose of this book is to give an introduction to economic psychology.We are confident that the book will stimulate further interest in an emerging interdisciplinary field of research and application.

    Economic psychology builds bridges between the disciplines of economics and psychology. Based on their common research focus on human behaviour, both economists and psychologists early on showed an interest in each other's fields. However, both disciplines developed their own ‘languages’, their specific research paradigms and methodological toolboxes, hence conducting separate research on similar topics. In the past decades, economic psychology has gained significant momentum, especially with the recognition of the research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky by the Nobel Prize Committee in 2002. At the latest since then, research in economic psychology and behavioural economics has significantly increased. It has gained visibility and relevance both in scientific discussions and in the applied fields. Specifically, economic psychology has been recognised in institutions regulating human behaviour, in applied economics, law and politics.We present an introduction to the theoretical topics of economic psychology and their relevance in applied fields.

    We cover questions about how people decide over the use of scarce resources, in particular money, from a psychological perspective. After giving an overview of the field, we start out with three chapters discussing the basic building blocks of economic behaviour: decision-making from a normative and a descriptive perspective as well as lay theories.We then move on to three chapters addressing the major markets on which economic behaviour occurs as an interaction between individuals and companies or institutions: consumer markets, labour markets and financial markets. We close with three chapters focusing on society-level topics: collective cooperation, collective production and collective prosperity.

    In Chapter 1, we present economic and psychological approaches towards the study of human behaviour. We also give an overview of the history and the current fields of economic psychology that we use as the guiding structure of this book.

    In Chapter 2, we present normative decision-making theories, starting out with classical decision theory and empirical studies on its predictions.We give an overview on decision anomalies that arise from information processing, emotions, time and heuristics.

    In Chapter 3, we present descriptive decision-making theories. First, prospect theory as a highly influential approach that can explain several systematic deviations from rationality in people's decisions is addressed.

  • 4 - Lay Theories: Knowledge and Money

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 93-133

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter introduces the notion that people act more upon their subjective interpretation of the situation than on its objective characteristics. One major feature of this notion is the concept of lay theories as opposed to expert theories. Laypeople without training in economics still form an understanding of economic topics and act upon that understanding. Lay theories have often been studied using the theory of social representations. This theory explains how new ideas and concepts are integrated into existing knowledge and identifies important elements of lay theories. Empirical studies on lay theories pertain to the economic system as a whole and to specific economic phenomena such as poverty, unemployment or money.

    Asecond feature is that people differ in their economic knowledge. This can best be understood by studying children growing up. The ability to grasp economic concepts is tied to cognitive development. In addition to knowledge, cooperation and the ability to take other people's perspective change with age. This means that economic motives such as egoism and altruism are evolving over time. Children and adolescents are also economic actors, both by spending money on their own and by influencing decisions within the household. In all these three areas, abilities improve with age. However, adults earning and spending their own money still may show gaps in economic understanding. The degree of economic sophistication can be captured by the concept of financial literacy.

    A third feature is that money, as the resource at the core of many economic activities, is not only the functional medium of exchange as described in economics. Money takes on subjective meanings that differ between individuals, and is valued differently depending on circumstances. The subjective sides of money become particularly prevalent during currency reforms or changeovers. An important event was the introduction of the euro in many European countries in 2002 when citizens had to learn to deal with a new currency. Finally, prices are perceived and interpreted subjectively. Consumers often assume that higher prices indicate higher quality although correlations between price and product test results are mostly low.

    Introduction

    In many areas of life, most of us are not experts but laypeople. Still, we make decisions using what we know. Few of us have studied to be dieticians, but still we manage to decide that the lovely chocolate cake may not be the best choice if we want to lose weight.

  • 1 - Economic Psychology: History and Application

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 1-25

  • Summary

    Overview.

    This chapter introduces the general theme of the book. It starts out with the presentation of different markets as an exchange of resources between households and firms (or institutions), which will serve as a framework for the following chapters. It outlines economic expectations as an example of how individual perceptions are influenced by the economy and how they influence the economy in turn. It then turns to the disciplinary perspectives: it defines economics, lists the research fields in economics, and describes economists’ basic assumptions about human behaviour. The general theoretical and empirical research approaches of economics and psychology are contrasted. This section also includes a short history of economic psychology as an academic discipline and closes with an overview of current research topics in the field.

    Markets are places where goods are exchanged. They are commonly defined as the intersection of supply and demand for goods and services, labour, land, capital, rights and other exchangeable resources. Actors’ behaviour in the marketplace depends upon their expectations for the future, and these expectations are informed by actors’ past and current experiences.

    Economics and psychology as social sciences are both concerned with human behaviour. While economics concentrates on behaviour in commercial and financial contexts, psychology investigates behaviour (and experience) in a variety of life areas. There are multiple points of contact between the two disciplines; however, their scientific developments have taken different trajectories. One distinction between economics and psychology is that economics is based on a normative model of human behaviour and is concerned with behaviour in the aggregate – such as at the level of the market or of the state. Conversely, psychology concentrates on the individual, on differences between people and on (small) group dynamics.

    Economic psychology attempts to build a bridge between economics and psychology. It is concerned with individual decisions, deviations from the economic (rational) model of human behaviour, with lay theories and markets, and also with welfare and well-being. The first steps towards the establishment of economic psychology as a discipline were taken at the beginning of the twentieth century but forgotten shortly thereafter. Economic psychology was briefly resuscitated in the middle of the last century before falling into obscurity once again. In the past few decades, however, especially since the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Daniel Kahneman, economic psychology has gained acceptance within the field of psychology.

  • 3 - Decision-Making: Descriptive Models and Choice Architecture

  • Erich Kirchler, Erik Hoelzl
  • Book:
    Economic Psychology
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    23 November 2017, pp 63-92

  • Summary

    Overview

    The empirical study of decision-making showed systematic deviations from the predictions of normative models. Descriptive models therefore try to account for such deviations and to capture how people actually make decisions. Prospect theory was developed on the basis of models of subjective expected utility and from observations of everyday decision-making and sources of error and bias. Prospect theory postulates that decisions under uncertainty are characterised by two steps: first, the decision situation is edited, that is, complexity of information is reduced. Second, decision outcomes are evaluated relative to a reference point as gains or losses and the probability of a gain or loss is taken into consideration. When people can choose between a risky alternative and a guaranteed payoff, they tend to act risk averse, as if they were trying to safeguard their gains. When threatened with loss, however, they tend to select the riskier rather than the safer alternative, showing a tendency to try to recoup their losses. Depending on the way in which a certain issue is presented, attention can be directed to gains or to losses, and the resulting decisions diverge.

    While prospect theory still contains the idea from normative models that decision-makers strive for the optimal alternative, other descriptive decision models assume that people do not necessarily seek the optimal option, just a satisfactory one. Often, choices are made implicitly. To justify an implicit choice, other available options are considered and analysed afterwards. Descriptive models illustrate how individuals and groups, organisations and politicians make decisions. They are based on the assumption that everyday decision-making is influenced by principles other than the ones postulated in classical normative models.

    Descriptive models depart from the rationality and utility maximisation assumptions and accept ‘very normal’ anomalies, such as heuristics and biases. People often make sensible, prudent decisions, even if not always the best ones. However, weakness of will, lack of time and the inability to process all the relevant information in complex situations adequately can often block good judgment and the realisation of good intentions. For that reason, decision experts give advice on how to take good decisions, and ‘decision architects’ try to give citizens a ‘nudge’ in a desired direction. Anudge can help thembehave in ways that benefit citizens themselves and/or the society, while keeping their freedom of choice.

  • 3 - The Analysis of Qualitative Interviews

  • from PART I - The Objective Study of Subjectivity
  • Martin J. Packer, Universidad de San Buenaventura, Colombia
  • Book:
    The Science of Qualitative Research
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 November 2017, pp 71-95

  • Summary

    Coding is analysis.

    Miles & Huberman, 1984, p. 56

    The declared aim of modern science is to establish a strictly detached, objective knowledge. Any falling short of this ideal is accepted only as a temporary imperfection, which we must aim at eliminating. But suppose that tacit thought forms an indispensable part of all knowledge; then the ideal of eliminating all personal elements of knowledge would, in effect, aim at the destruction of all knowledge. The ideal of exact science would turn out to be fundamentally misleading and possibly a source of devastating fallacies.

    Polanyi, 1967, p. 20

    In the standard qualitative research project, the step after conducting an interview is to transcribe it and analyze the material obtained. The analysis of qualitative material causes much anxiety and confusion for researchers, especially students conducting research for the first time. Yet remarkably little is said about analysis in many introductory qualitative research textbooks, and what is said is often unclear.

    For example, Seidman's (1998) comprehensive book Interviewing as Qualitative Research includes only 14 or so pages on the topic of analysis out of a total of 124.Maxwell, in an otherwise excellent book titled Qualitative Research Design, writes in the chapter titled “Methods: What Will You Actually Do?” that his discussion “is not intended to explain how to do qualitative data analysis” (Maxwell, 2005, p. 95, emphasis original). This is odd coming from someone who offers an “integrative approach” to qualitative research design and insists, surely correctly, that all the elements of project design should interrelate.Maxwell talks only in general terms about analytic strategies of “categorizing” and “connecting,” and it is not clear how these link to the research questions that orient a study or to the other components – goals of the study, theoretical framework, and others – whose interconnections he considers carefully.

    These are not isolated cases. Generally only extremely brief characterizations of data analysis are offered; for example, that it is “a process of looking for significant statements, and comparing what was said in different interviews” (Blaxter, Hughes, & Tight, 2001). But what counts as “significant”? Is an interview really composed of “statements”? Why compare interviews, and how is the comparison made? What is the outcome of this comparison?

    Despite the lack of detail, there is general agreement that analysis is a matter of “coding.” Miles and Huberman state baldly that “[c]oding is analysis” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 56).

  • 2.1 - Engagement practices: a major issue in contemporary education

  • from Part 2 - Practice
  • Edited by Geoff Woolcott, Southern Cross University, Australia, Robert Whannell, University of New England, Australia
  • Book:
    Teaching Secondary Science
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 November 2017, pp 217-235

  • Summary

    LEARNING OBJECTIVES

    After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

  • • describe strategies for signposting the significance and connection of a learning activity

  • • formulate questions that encourage substantive conversation

  • • identify learning design elements that encourage higher order thinking

  • • plan strategies that allow feedback and development of metacognitive skills.

    • Introduction

    This chapter is the ‘mirror’ chapter for Chapter 1.1 and it also introduces ideas that will be explored more fully in the remainder of this book. The chapter begins to connect the more theoretical discussion in the first part of the book to everyday practice in schools. The connection will be made through a discussion of four example lessons, each used to discuss a range of strategies for engaging students in their learning, although the strategies should also be seen as highly interconnected.

    A key idea to keep in mind as you read this chapter is that engagement is something different to entertainment or even attention and is more than good behaviour. When they are engaged, students take on work that is intellectually challenging, involves higher order thinking and is connected to work they do in the real world. Following on from this, another key idea to keep in mind is that engagement in learning is often more about how we go about teaching, rather than what we teach.

    OPENING VIGNETTE

    When do we get to use the Bunsen burners?

    As I started teaching, this was a near constant refrain from my year 7 and year 8 classes, and it left me feeling frustrated. Didn't these kids ‘get’ that science was so much more? This is quite literally the subject of ‘life, the universe and everything’! Sure, the Bunsen burner has its appeal, but weren't they curious about other things, or even just about what was going on when the gas burned in the burner that was such an obsession? And I was teaching in the middle of the Murray-Darling Basin during a massive drought, so why weren't they interested in my carefully planned unit on the water cycle?

    I was reminded of this experience recently when a science communicator was relating how, in her regular spot on the local ABC radio station, the phones ran hot when the topic was medical research, but shows on quantum physics had to be well spaced in the calendar as they quickly exhausted the question bank in the listener community.

  • 12 - Emancipatory Inquiry as Rational Reconstruction

  • from Part III - Inquiry With An Emancipatory Interest
  • Martin J. Packer, Universidad de San Buenaventura, Colombia
  • Book:
    The Science of Qualitative Research
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 November 2017, pp 371-397

  • Summary

    Against the intellectual grain of the time, Jürgen Habermas's grand theorizing defends the claims of reason, universality and normative validity. Among internationally prominent intellectuals on the left today, Habermas is a rarity: he insists the Enlightenment got it mostly right. For decades, he has been at work reconstructing what he sees as the damaged but vital legacy of Enlightenment rationality, rescuing its practical and emancipatory dimensions from the encroachments of technocratic and instrumental reason.

    Forbath, 1998, p. 969

    Jürgen Habermas is one of the most important philosophers today. He was trained in the Frankfurt School, and he continued its reappraisal of Marxism, which by the 1960s he felt seemed to be better at legitimating authoritarian states than critiquing them. Orthodox Marxism – with its determinist reading of Marx's writings – seemed to be serving an ideological function similar to the one the Frankfurt School had found in positivist science – that of “portraying particular interests and goals as technical necessities” (Mendelson, 1979, p. 46). Four aspects of Habermas's work are important to us here. The first is his elaboration of Marx's proposal that knowledge is never neutral and disinterested but is made possible by “knowledge-constitutive interests.” This proposal transformed the image of critical inquiry, showing that it is distinct from both empirical-analytic science and interpretive inquiry but is no less a science for its interest in emancipation. The second is his debate with Gadamer over the requirements for critical inquiry, in which Habermas stated a position that he has never changed: that a researcher needs more than the resources of a member. A frame of reference outside the form of life being investigated is necessary. The third aspect of Habermas's work is his exploration of psychoanalysis as a model for critical and emancipatory inquiry, a process in which the therapist carries out a depth hermeneutics aided by a theoretical reconstruction of the consequences of childhood trauma. The fourth and final aspect is Habermas's turn to a collaboration between philosophy and social science to carry out the “rational reconstruction” of human communication and social organization in order to identify their universal underlying norms.

    These four aspects center around the crucial question of what kind of special knowledge or stance a researcher needs in order to conduct critical inquiry.

  • Foreword

  • Louise Floyd, James Cook University, North Queensland, William Steenson, University of Technology Sydney, Amanda Coulthard, Bond University, Queensland, Daniel Williams, Anne C. Pickering, University of Queensland
  • Book:
    Employment, Labour and Industrial Law in Australia
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 November 2017, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    Until the Industrial Revolution, the regulation of employment was not a subject which engaged the minds of legislators to any great extent. Even so, attempts to control employment had been made as early as 1351 when, in the reign of Edward III, the Statute of Labourers sought to reduce wages to the levels which applied before the Black Death. The labour shortage caused by that awful plague had seen wages rise and labourers move in search of improved conditions. As has often been the case, the statute failed to realise its goal.

    In this country, colonial governments made sporadic attempts to control the labour market, and often with the same lack of success as had been experienced half a millennium earlier in England. It was not until the great strikes of the 1890s that a concentrated effort was made to create a system which might prevent or settle disputes. Legislation to establish systems of conciliation and arbitration emerged, first in Western Australia (1900) and then New South Wales (1901), theCommonwealth (1904), South Australia (1915) and Queensland (1916). Tasmania and Victoria retained a curious attachment to wages boards until 1984 and 1992 respectively.

    The slow march in legislation was mirrored in the common law of employment, where principles established in the 19th century and earlier were applied with varying degrees of precision well into the late 20th century. But the market for labour does not wait for parliaments or courts. While changes in the types and styles of employment have been recognised to a limited extent by the various industrial commissions through awards and agreements, the pace of change continues to quicken.

    This book recognises that the acceleration in change means that decades of labour law jurisprudence are being relegated on a continuing basis to the file marked ‘of historical interest’. Knowledge of the interstices of interstate industrial disputes or the effect of ambit claims was once an essential part of an industrial lawyer's armoury. After the WorkChoices case, the thousands of pages devoted to those matters are now consigned to the dusty shelves of unvisited libraries.

Page 1263 of 1932