The 2025 JSPE-Routledge Book Prize winner is Stephen A. Marglin (the Walter S. Barker Professor of Economics at Harvard University).

Awarded Work:

Stephen A. Marglin, Growth, Distribution, and Prices. Harvard University Press. 1984.

Stephen A. Marglin, Juliet B. Schor ed. The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience. Clarendon Press. 1990. (Japanese translation by Akinori Isogai, Hiroyasu Uemura, and Akira Ebizuka, ShihonShugi-no-OugonZidai: Marx-to-Keynes-wo-Koete. Toyo Keizai Shinposha, 1993)

Reason for Award:

Growth, Distribution, and Prices views the major currents in macroeconomics as three distinct schools: Neoclassical, Neo-Marxian, and Neo-Keynesian. It compares and examines these schools under a common Leontief-type production model. According to neoclassical economics, individuals' utility-maximizing behavior leads to aggregate supply and demand, which are then equilibrated by price-adjusting mechanisms in the markets for goods, labor, and capital. This determines the path of balanced growth and income distribution. Neo-Marxian political economy focuses on the class struggle between capital and labor. This struggle determines the rate of exploitation, which then dictates the rate of profit given that workers receive "subsistence wages." Neo-Keynesian economics posits that capitalists' investment decisions and savings correspond to the rate of expected profits, which in turn dictate economic growth rates and the distribution of income between capital and labor. However, since investment decisions and savings do not necessarily align, the dynamic process of disequilibrium economic growth will be examined as an intrinsic feature of capitalist economic dynamics.

This book aims to establish a theoretical framework for the economic analysis of capitalism that cannot be achieved through mainstream neoclassical economic analysis. The book suggests integrating neo-Keynesian and neo-Marxian approaches as a way forward. While this integration has not yet been fully realized, the theoretical examinations conducted in its chapters demonstrate the potential for applying theories developed in economic academia to the analysis of real capitalism. These examinations have influenced many critical economists and contributed to the emergence of radical economics in the United States and the worldwide revival of political economy. Examples include S. Bowles's theory of contested exchange and "labor extraction" theory, R. Boyer's macro growth models under the regulation framework, and Marglin's theory of growth regimes. Some of these achievements are featured in his 1990 co-edited work, The Golden Age of Capitalism, which has also been translated into Japanese. In this book, Marglin presents his theoretical framework for analyzing the period of sustained economic growth in advanced capitalist countries, led by the United States, in the 1950s and 1960s. This period was characterized by high profitability and wage increases. In Chapter 4, co-authored with A. Bhaduri, Marglin analyzes the "profit squeeze" that ended this "golden age" by developing the "growth regime" theory. This model incorporates the Marglin-Bhaduri investment function and pioneered the "growth regime" theory. It developed into a representative macro model of heterodox economics. It has generated numerous theoretical and empirical studies on wage-led versus profit-led growth, contributing to a deeper understanding of income distribution and economic growth.

In his recent work Raising Keynes: A Twenty-First-Century General Theory (Harvard University Press, 2021), he aims to counter the upgraded neoclassical general equilibrium theory with perfect foresight by conducting dynamic analysis under the system of overdetermination. This analysis seeks to establish a new economic policy framework centered on investment and public spending.

Stephen Marglin was originally a development economics researcher who collaborated with Amartya Sen and others on evaluating development projects. Around 1970, he became an outspoken critic of the way economics explains human behavior through utility-maximizing rationality. His 1974 paper, "What Do Bosses Do?: The Origins and Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production," published in the Review of Radical Political Economics (Vol. 6, No. 2, 1974), reinterpreted the establishment of the capitalist factory system. Previously, this system was understood from the perspective of technical and economic efficiency. However, Marglin argued that it was actually rooted in the establishment of managerial control through the deprivation of workers' agency in the production process. This work continues to be read by numerous scholars, including those in economic and business history.

Since the 1990s, he has conducted research incorporating cultural anthropological insights and postcolonial perspectives in collaboration with Frédérique Apffel-Marglin at the United Nations University WIDER. This includes works such as The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community (Harvard University Press, 2008), which offers a scathing critique of the “common sense” and modes of thinking of economists. At Harvard University, he has consistently offered courses in critical economics as an alternative to the standard economics curriculum. His consistent critical stance toward conventional "economic" thinking, alongside his theoretical achievements, such as his award-winning book, is highly commendable.

For these reasons, the committee has decided to award the International Prize to Professor S. Marglin.