Research Interests

•  Methodology, History of Economic Thought, General Economic  History, Workplace Democracy.

Selected Publications

   
• “Inequality, Social Respectability, Political Power, and Environmental Devastation,” Journal of Economic Issues, 45 (4), December 2011: 877-900.
   
• “Legitimating Inequality:  Fooling Most of the People All of the Time,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 70 (4), October 2011: 974-1013 (with James F. Smith).
   
• “Rising Inequality and the Financial Crises of 1929 and 2008,” in Consequences of Economic Downturn.  Edited by Martha Starr.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, December 2010: 63-82 (With Barton Baker).
   
• “Creative Destruction, Economic Insecurity, Stress, and Epidemic Obesity,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 69 (3), July 2010: 963-82 (with Kevin W. Capehart, Ph.D. Candidate).
   
• “The Moral Imperative and Social Rationality of Government-Guaranteed Employment and Reskilling,” Review of Social Economy, 68 (1), March 2010: 35-67.
   
• “On Human Behavior and the Nature of the Workplace,” Looking Beyond the Individualism & Homo Economicus of Neoclassical Economics, Edward O’Boyle, ed., Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 2010: 161-76.  Also appearing in NEP Cognitive and Behavioural Economics, 2009-12-05, http://ideas.repec.org/n/nep-cbe/
   
• “Household Saving, Class Identity, and Conspicuous Consumption,” Journal of Economic Issues, 43 (1), March 2009: 89-114.
   
• “The Economic Causes of War and Peace,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, 2nd Edition, Vol. I, Oxford: Elsevier 2008: 622-34. 
   
• "State Lotteries: Using State Power to Fleece the Poor," Journal of Economic Issues, XL (4), December 2006, 955- 966.
   
• "Creative Destruction and Community,in Ethics and the Market" Insights from Social Economics. Edited by Betsy Jane Clary, Wilfred Dolfsma, and Deborah M. Figart. London: Routledge, 2006, Chapter 3, pp. 26-40.
   
• "Did U.S. Labor's Post-World War II Successes Lead to It's Subsequent Woes?" International Journal of Social Economics, 32 (10), 2005, 899-915.
   
• "U. S. Labor Re-examined 1880-1990: Did Successes Lead to Reversals?" The Institutionalist Tradition in Labor Economics. Edited by Janet Knoedler and Dell Champlin. M.E. Sharpe, 2004, 88-102 (with PhD student Aaron Pacitti).
   
• "The Scope and Promising Future of Social Economics," Review of Social Economy, LXI (4), December 2003, 1-21. Presidential Address to The Association for Social Economics.
   
• "Creative Destruction and Labor's Options" Forum for Social Economics, 30 (2), Spring 2001, 51-76.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

• Twice recipient of the American University Award for Outstanding Teaching,
• Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society's Professor of the Year,
• Winner of the $10,000 Speiser Essay Contest.

Work In Progress

"We All Must Work: Creative Destruction and The Pursuit of Happiness (book project)."

“Rising Job Complexity and the Need for Government Guaranteed Work and Training” (with Nick Reksten, Ph.D. student).   

“The Changing Character of Work, Rising Inequality and the Transformation of the Protestant Ethic: 1870-1930” (with Matt Davis, Ph.D. student).

“Creative Destruction, an Ever-widening Generation Gap, and Parental Happiness.”

 “Labor Busted, Rising Inequality, and the Financial Crisis of 1929: An Unlearned Lesson.”   

“The Political Dynamics of Inequality: From Violence and Religion to Secular Ideology”

"Adam Smith's Appropriation Theory of Human Behavior Reconsidered."

 “On the Evolution of Instrumental Habits of Thought.”