Unequal Treatment (Routledge Revivals)

Book excerpt: This book, written by two leading Swedish economists and first published in 1984, constitutes a threefold contribution to the expanding field of economic discrimination. In the first place, it summarizes different approaches to the economics of discrimination, from the beginning of the British debate on equal pay in the 1890s onwards. Secondly, the book contains analytical chapters that, taking the theory originated by Gary Becker as their point of departure, critique and develop the Beckerian theory in a number of ways; in particular, the phenomenon known as crowding is investigated in different models. Finally, the theories thus developed are applied to a concrete case of discrimination: that of apartheid in South Africa. This is a fascinating title that will be of value to any economics students researching the development of discrimination theory during the twentieth century in particular.