David A Spencer
Biographic Data
| ID | 245305 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David A Spencer |
| GIVEN NAMES | David A |
| FAMILY NAME | Spencer |
| SIGNATURE | SPENCER D A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leeds |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0799-7491 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 86 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Work time reduction
I address the goal of work time reduction from two distinct angles. Firstly, I review some old ideas (linked to the writings of Marx, J.S. Mill and Keynes) that imagine a better society where constant work is replaced with abundant leisure. I show how these ideas offer different views on the barriers preventing work time reduction and on the mechanisms required to achieve it. Secondly, I consider new possibilities for reducing working time in the…
Rethinking the economics of AI
Economics needs to be rethought if it is to address the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on work. In particular, rethinking is needed in the way that economics theorises the value of work. Economics needs to open up to new thinking and become more like a social science as opposed to a technical, abstract and aloof discipline. The prospect of economics accommodating such change remains remote, however, despite its urgency and necessity. Thi…
AI, automation and the lightening of work
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology poses possible threats to existing jobs. These threats extend not just to the number of jobs available but also to their quality. In the future, so some predict, workers could face fewer and potentially worse jobs, at least if society does not embrace reforms that manage the coming AI revolution. This paper uses the example of Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson’s recent book— Power and Progress (2023)—to illu…
Keynes as a post-growth economist
Beyond Full Employment
This paper addresses the idea of creating an economy beyond full employmentnamely one that offers some work for people to do but also more abundant leisure time. It argues that this idea has endured in critical political economy. J.M. Keynes gave it support directly. Its realisation though raises concerns over the balance of power relations in society and the scope to use the productivity gains from technological progress to lighten work. Here us…
Automation and Well-Being
Some economists now predict that technology will eliminate many millions of jobs and lead to a future without work. Much debate focuses on the accuracy of such a prediction—whether, or at what rate, jobs will disappear. But there is a wider question raised by this prediction, namely the merits or otherwise of automating work. Beyond estimating future job losses via automation, there is the normative issue of whether the quality of life would be e…
Technology and work
This paper addresses arguments that suggest life would be better if machines took the place of humans in work. These arguments are highly topical and remain central to modern debates on automation. Yet, as argued in this paper, they have a long history. They draw strength from different ideas including about the value of work and free time. These ideas also fit with broader agendas that address futures beyond capitalism. The paper uses a review o…
Development and Evaluation of the Dynamic Left Turn Intersection
Dual left turn lanes are typically operated with protected left turn signals, which means extra delay during non-peak hours compared to permissive operation. To reduce this delay, the authors designed, installed, and tested a “dynamic left turn intersection” (DLTi), which is a new way to operate dual left turn lanes. With DLTi, the both lanes are operated with protected phasing during the peak hours when higher capacity is needed, and only the le…
A Four‐Day Working Week
From a fringe idea with limited wider support, the goal of a four‐day working week has moved into the spotlight in contemporary policy debates. Indeed, a growing number of businesses have agreed to pilot a four‐day working week. This article examines what the turn to this goal means for a politics of work. It argues that its adoption by business interests can dilute its impacts, while its stress in some radical circles can distract from other pre…
Advancing HIV Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies
Despite substantial progress in confronting the global HIV-1 epidemic since its inception in the 1980s, better approaches for both treatment and prevention will be necessary to end the epidemic and remain a top public health priority. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been effective in extending lives, but at a cost of lifelong adherence to treatment. Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are directed to conserved regions of the HIV-1 envelope g…
From happiness to social provisioning
The paper offers a critique of happiness research based on subjective well-being (SWB) data and proposes an alternative approach to the study of well-being drawing on the political economy tradition. The World Happiness Report (WHR) interpretation of the impact of the Global Financial Crisis on SWB data is used to illustrate the problems with happiness research and the merits of an alternative political economy approach to well-being. The develop…
Understanding the Global Financial Crisis
This article argues that collective development of an understanding of the global financial crisis and ensuing austerity requires an alliance between sociology, 'heterodox economics' and related disciplines within the broad tradition of 'political economy'. It introduces 'heterodox economics' as a body of thought that emerged in response to the failure of mainstream economics to theorise coherently the capitalist system as a whole, suggesting tha…
Not all that it might seem
Interest in data on job satisfaction is increasing in both academic and policy circles. One common way of interpreting these data is to see a positive association between job satisfaction and job quality. Another view is to dismiss the usefulness of job satisfaction data, because workers can often express satisfaction with work where job quality is poor. It is argued that this second view has some validity, but that survey data on job satisfactio…
Work is a Four-Letter Word
The article highlights and explains the neglect of the activity of work in much of the mainstream economics literature. The neglect of work is seen to have denied space for mainstream economists to engage with the full range of possibilities for progress in human well-being. The article also considers perspectives on work from within heterodox or non-mainstream economics and argues that these perspectives provide a superior foundation for the the…
Getting personnel
This article seeks to critique and transcend the economics of personnel, a new and fast growing area of mainstream labour economics that focuses upon the study of human resources issues. Personnel economics is presented by its founder Edward Lazear as a superior alternative to research in other established fields, including HRM and the sociology of work. It is argued against Lazear that personnel economics offers a limited and flawed conception o…
The ‘work as bad’ thesis in economics
This paper argues that in all major of epochs of economic thought – mercantilist, classical, and neoclassical – work has been portrayed as an unloved necessity. Politically, the treatment of work as a necessary evil has created undue pessimism about the prospects for progress in the quality of work and has helped to justify repressive policies to compel the working population to work hard. The ‘work as bad’ thesis, however, has been challenged by…
The Political Economy of Work
Against the background of increasing interest in the changing nature and quality of work, The Political Economy of Work offers a new and unique assessment of the theoretical analysis of work. The author challenges some common preconceptions about work and promotes an original approach to the field, contemplating the nature and development of ideas on work and its impact on human well-being drawing on such burgeoning literatures as the 'economics …
From Pain Cost to Opportunity Cost
I would like to thank two anonymous referees for useful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also very grateful for the comments of Andrew Brown, John King, Malcolm Sawyer, Gary Slater, Ian Steedman, and Michael White. Remaining errors are mine alone
Shirking the Issue? Efficiency wages, work discipline and full employment
This paper assesses recent neoclassical and radical contributions to the analysis of unemployment as a labour disciplinary device, in particular, those of Shapiro & Stiglitz and Bowles & Gintis. These authors share a common set of premises, notably on the conception of the effort decision, that present severe obstacles to the understanding of productivity constraints on full employment. The models of Shapiro & Stiglitz and Bowles & Gintis identif…
Social and Economic Motivation at Work
Braverman and the Contribution of Labour Process Analysis to the Critique of Capitalist Production - Twenty-Five Years On
This paper seeks to reassess the contributions made by Braverman and subsequent labour process writers to the critique of capitalist production. Braverman's main motivation lay with the subversion of pro-capitalist ideologies. He identified deskilling tendencies with the capitalist imperative of accumulation in order to promote the case for revolutionary change. The labour process debate that Braverman helped to initiate, while successful in broa…
Himalayan Tectonics (Geological Society Special Publication No. 74)
Not all that it might seem
Interest in data on job satisfaction is increasing in both academic and policy circles. One common way of interpreting these data is to see a positive association between job satisfaction and job quality. Another view is to dismiss the usefulness of job satisfaction data, because workers can often express satisfaction with work where job quality is poor. It is argued that this second view has some validity, but that survey data on job satisfactio…
Braverman and the Contribution of Labour Process Analysis to the Critique of Capitalist Production - Twenty-Five Years On
This paper seeks to reassess the contributions made by Braverman and subsequent labour process writers to the critique of capitalist production. Braverman's main motivation lay with the subversion of pro-capitalist ideologies. He identified deskilling tendencies with the capitalist imperative of accumulation in order to promote the case for revolutionary change. The labour process debate that Braverman helped to initiate, while successful in broa…
Understanding the Global Financial Crisis
This article argues that collective development of an understanding of the global financial crisis and ensuing austerity requires an alliance between sociology, 'heterodox economics' and related disciplines within the broad tradition of 'political economy'. It introduces 'heterodox economics' as a body of thought that emerged in response to the failure of mainstream economics to theorise coherently the capitalist system as a whole, suggesting tha…
From Pain Cost to Opportunity Cost
I would like to thank two anonymous referees for useful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also very grateful for the comments of Andrew Brown, John King, Malcolm Sawyer, Gary Slater, Ian Steedman, and Michael White. Remaining errors are mine alone
Technology and work
This paper addresses arguments that suggest life would be better if machines took the place of humans in work. These arguments are highly topical and remain central to modern debates on automation. Yet, as argued in this paper, they have a long history. They draw strength from different ideas including about the value of work and free time. These ideas also fit with broader agendas that address futures beyond capitalism. The paper uses a review o…
Getting personnel
This article seeks to critique and transcend the economics of personnel, a new and fast growing area of mainstream labour economics that focuses upon the study of human resources issues. Personnel economics is presented by its founder Edward Lazear as a superior alternative to research in other established fields, including HRM and the sociology of work. It is argued against Lazear that personnel economics offers a limited and flawed conception o…
A Four‐Day Working Week
From a fringe idea with limited wider support, the goal of a four‐day working week has moved into the spotlight in contemporary policy debates. Indeed, a growing number of businesses have agreed to pilot a four‐day working week. This article examines what the turn to this goal means for a politics of work. It argues that its adoption by business interests can dilute its impacts, while its stress in some radical circles can distract from other pre…
From happiness to social provisioning
The paper offers a critique of happiness research based on subjective well-being (SWB) data and proposes an alternative approach to the study of well-being drawing on the political economy tradition. The World Happiness Report (WHR) interpretation of the impact of the Global Financial Crisis on SWB data is used to illustrate the problems with happiness research and the merits of an alternative political economy approach to well-being. The develop…
Work is a Four-Letter Word
The article highlights and explains the neglect of the activity of work in much of the mainstream economics literature. The neglect of work is seen to have denied space for mainstream economists to engage with the full range of possibilities for progress in human well-being. The article also considers perspectives on work from within heterodox or non-mainstream economics and argues that these perspectives provide a superior foundation for the the…
The ‘work as bad’ thesis in economics
This paper argues that in all major of epochs of economic thought – mercantilist, classical, and neoclassical – work has been portrayed as an unloved necessity. Politically, the treatment of work as a necessary evil has created undue pessimism about the prospects for progress in the quality of work and has helped to justify repressive policies to compel the working population to work hard. The ‘work as bad’ thesis, however, has been challenged by…
Shirking the Issue? Efficiency wages, work discipline and full employment
This paper assesses recent neoclassical and radical contributions to the analysis of unemployment as a labour disciplinary device, in particular, those of Shapiro & Stiglitz and Bowles & Gintis. These authors share a common set of premises, notably on the conception of the effort decision, that present severe obstacles to the understanding of productivity constraints on full employment. The models of Shapiro & Stiglitz and Bowles & Gintis identif…
Himalayan Tectonics (Geological Society Special Publication No. 74)
Braverman and the Contribution of Labour Process Analysis to the Critique of Capitalist Production - Twenty-Five Years On
This paper seeks to reassess the contributions made by Braverman and subsequent labour process writers to the critique of capitalist production. Braverman's main motivation lay with the subversion of pro-capitalist ideologies. He identified deskilling tendencies with the capitalist imperative of accumulation in order to promote the case for revolutionary change. The labour process debate that Braverman helped to initiate, while successful in broa…
Shirking the Issue? Efficiency wages, work discipline and full employment
This paper assesses recent neoclassical and radical contributions to the analysis of unemployment as a labour disciplinary device, in particular, those of Shapiro & Stiglitz and Bowles & Gintis. These authors share a common set of premises, notably on the conception of the effort decision, that present severe obstacles to the understanding of productivity constraints on full employment. The models of Shapiro & Stiglitz and Bowles & Gintis identif…
Social and Economic Motivation at Work
From Pain Cost to Opportunity Cost
I would like to thank two anonymous referees for useful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also very grateful for the comments of Andrew Brown, John King, Malcolm Sawyer, Gary Slater, Ian Steedman, and Michael White. Remaining errors are mine alone
The Political Economy of Work
Against the background of increasing interest in the changing nature and quality of work, The Political Economy of Work offers a new and unique assessment of the theoretical analysis of work. The author challenges some common preconceptions about work and promotes an original approach to the field, contemplating the nature and development of ideas on work and its impact on human well-being drawing on such burgeoning literatures as the 'economics …
The ‘work as bad’ thesis in economics
This paper argues that in all major of epochs of economic thought – mercantilist, classical, and neoclassical – work has been portrayed as an unloved necessity. Politically, the treatment of work as a necessary evil has created undue pessimism about the prospects for progress in the quality of work and has helped to justify repressive policies to compel the working population to work hard. The ‘work as bad’ thesis, however, has been challenged by…
Work is a Four-Letter Word
The article highlights and explains the neglect of the activity of work in much of the mainstream economics literature. The neglect of work is seen to have denied space for mainstream economists to engage with the full range of possibilities for progress in human well-being. The article also considers perspectives on work from within heterodox or non-mainstream economics and argues that these perspectives provide a superior foundation for the the…
Getting personnel
This article seeks to critique and transcend the economics of personnel, a new and fast growing area of mainstream labour economics that focuses upon the study of human resources issues. Personnel economics is presented by its founder Edward Lazear as a superior alternative to research in other established fields, including HRM and the sociology of work. It is argued against Lazear that personnel economics offers a limited and flawed conception o…
Not all that it might seem
Interest in data on job satisfaction is increasing in both academic and policy circles. One common way of interpreting these data is to see a positive association between job satisfaction and job quality. Another view is to dismiss the usefulness of job satisfaction data, because workers can often express satisfaction with work where job quality is poor. It is argued that this second view has some validity, but that survey data on job satisfactio…
Understanding the Global Financial Crisis
This article argues that collective development of an understanding of the global financial crisis and ensuing austerity requires an alliance between sociology, 'heterodox economics' and related disciplines within the broad tradition of 'political economy'. It introduces 'heterodox economics' as a body of thought that emerged in response to the failure of mainstream economics to theorise coherently the capitalist system as a whole, suggesting tha…
From happiness to social provisioning
The paper offers a critique of happiness research based on subjective well-being (SWB) data and proposes an alternative approach to the study of well-being drawing on the political economy tradition. The World Happiness Report (WHR) interpretation of the impact of the Global Financial Crisis on SWB data is used to illustrate the problems with happiness research and the merits of an alternative political economy approach to well-being. The develop…
Advancing HIV Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies
Despite substantial progress in confronting the global HIV-1 epidemic since its inception in the 1980s, better approaches for both treatment and prevention will be necessary to end the epidemic and remain a top public health priority. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been effective in extending lives, but at a cost of lifelong adherence to treatment. Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are directed to conserved regions of the HIV-1 envelope g…
Development and Evaluation of the Dynamic Left Turn Intersection
Dual left turn lanes are typically operated with protected left turn signals, which means extra delay during non-peak hours compared to permissive operation. To reduce this delay, the authors designed, installed, and tested a “dynamic left turn intersection” (DLTi), which is a new way to operate dual left turn lanes. With DLTi, the both lanes are operated with protected phasing during the peak hours when higher capacity is needed, and only the le…
A Four‐Day Working Week
From a fringe idea with limited wider support, the goal of a four‐day working week has moved into the spotlight in contemporary policy debates. Indeed, a growing number of businesses have agreed to pilot a four‐day working week. This article examines what the turn to this goal means for a politics of work. It argues that its adoption by business interests can dilute its impacts, while its stress in some radical circles can distract from other pre…
Automation and Well-Being
Some economists now predict that technology will eliminate many millions of jobs and lead to a future without work. Much debate focuses on the accuracy of such a prediction—whether, or at what rate, jobs will disappear. But there is a wider question raised by this prediction, namely the merits or otherwise of automating work. Beyond estimating future job losses via automation, there is the normative issue of whether the quality of life would be e…
Technology and work
This paper addresses arguments that suggest life would be better if machines took the place of humans in work. These arguments are highly topical and remain central to modern debates on automation. Yet, as argued in this paper, they have a long history. They draw strength from different ideas including about the value of work and free time. These ideas also fit with broader agendas that address futures beyond capitalism. The paper uses a review o…
Beyond Full Employment
This paper addresses the idea of creating an economy beyond full employmentnamely one that offers some work for people to do but also more abundant leisure time. It argues that this idea has endured in critical political economy. J.M. Keynes gave it support directly. Its realisation though raises concerns over the balance of power relations in society and the scope to use the productivity gains from technological progress to lighten work. Here us…
AI, automation and the lightening of work
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology poses possible threats to existing jobs. These threats extend not just to the number of jobs available but also to their quality. In the future, so some predict, workers could face fewer and potentially worse jobs, at least if society does not embrace reforms that manage the coming AI revolution. This paper uses the example of Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson’s recent book— Power and Progress (2023)—to illu…
Keynes as a post-growth economist
Work time reduction
I address the goal of work time reduction from two distinct angles. Firstly, I review some old ideas (linked to the writings of Marx, J.S. Mill and Keynes) that imagine a better society where constant work is replaced with abundant leisure. I show how these ideas offer different views on the barriers preventing work time reduction and on the mechanisms required to achieve it. Secondly, I consider new possibilities for reducing working time in the…
Rethinking the economics of AI
Economics needs to be rethought if it is to address the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on work. In particular, rethinking is needed in the way that economics theorises the value of work. Economics needs to open up to new thinking and become more like a social science as opposed to a technical, abstract and aloof discipline. The prospect of economics accommodating such change remains remote, however, despite its urgency and necessity. Thi…
Economics (15 works) · Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Engineering (10 works) · Work (physics (10 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (9 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works)