The Center is hosting its third Fulbright Professor, Stephen Amberg , from the University of Texas - San Antonio. Stephen Amberg presents his research interests thus:

I’m interested in why countries make different decisions about employment, how to create jobs and how to secure employment and income security. I focus on how politics shapes employment, including the rights that parties to the employment relationship have in their transactions as well as the relationship between labor market institutions and other institutions of society, such as industrial relations, education, finance, social policy, and forms of representation. My questions concern how countries, firms, and workers can successfully adjust to international economic instability over time. In some countries, the current interpretation of adjustment is to change the rules that govern employment to enable employers to fire employees easily as well as create new jobs with few restrictions. In other countries, adjustment also is about how the work gets done and how income security can be guaranteed. National culture is important for understanding what is going on. But then can we learn from each other? What is the capacity of people to learn—to reflect on their lives and their work—and to seek improvement from whatever the source, adapting these lessons to solve their problems?

Stephen Amberg will be with the Center until June 2010.