David William Soskice, FBA (born 6 July 1942) is a British

political economist Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour m ...

and academic. He is currently the LSE School Professor of Political Science and Economics at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

Early life and education

Soskice was born as son of the British Labour

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all nationa ...

Frank Soskice and his wife Susan Isabella Cloudsley Soskice (née Hunter) in London. He shares his first name with his grandfather, the Russian revolutionary journalist , who had fled to England. His paternal grandmother was Juliet Catherine Emma Soskice (née Hueffer), daughter of Francis Hueffer and Catherine Madox Brown, sister of

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals '' The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...

and

Oliver Madox Hueffer Oliver Madox Hueffer (born Oliver Franz Hueffer; 1877 – 22 June 1931), was an author, playwright, and war correspondent. Biography Heuffer was born in 1877 in Surrey to Catherine Madox Brown, an artist, and Francis Hueffer, a German-English ...

, granddaughter of Ford Madox Brown, half-niece of

Lucy Madox Brown Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti (19 July 1843 – 12 April 1894) was a British artist, author, and model associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. She was married to the writer and art critic William Michael Rossetti. Early life Madox Brown was born in P ...

and cousin of

Olivia Rossetti Agresti Olivia Rossetti Agresti (1875–1960) was a British activist, author, editor, and interpreter. A member of one of England's most prominent artistic and literary families, her unconventional political trajectory began with anarchism, continued ...

. Soskice was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...

and studied

Political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

and

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

at Nuffield and at

Trinity College, Oxford (That which you wish to be secret, tell to nobody) , named_for = The Holy Trinity , established = , sister_college = Churchill College, Cambridge , president = Dame Hilary Boulding , location = Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BH , coordinates ...

Academic career

Between 1967 and 1990, he worked as

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in Economics at

University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...

. After the

Fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...

he went to the Berlin Social Science Research Center, where he worked as

Research professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

and director of the working group 'Employment and Economic change'. After his retirement in 2007, he returned to Nuffield as Research Professor of ''Comparative Political Economy'' and Senior Research Fellow. Soskice was Visiting Professor at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

, Berkeley,

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and, every spring semester, at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...

. Between 2004 and 2007, he was appointed Centennial Professor at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

. He counselled the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate ...

, the

British Labour Party The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all ...

and the governments of

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

in questions of employment and education.

Research

Within his research area,

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

, Soskice's focusses on the study of labor markets, systems of

Vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an i ...

and production regimes. The 2001 published book ''

Varieties of Capitalism ''Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage'' is a 2001 book on economics, political economy, and comparative politics edited by political economists Peter A. Hall and David Soskice. Contents ''Varieties o ...

'', written/edited by Soskice and the Harvard professor Peter A. Hall is influential both in Political Economy (due to its macroeconomic implications) and

Business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separ ...

(because of its analytical focus on the organizational structure of the individual firm). The book typecasts and analyzes two distinct types of capitalist economies: the ''liberal'' and ''coordinated'' market economies.

Personal life

In 1966, Soskice married Alison Black; they later divorced. Together they had two children: one son and one daughter. In 1991, he married Nicola Mary Lacey.

Bibliography

* 2006: ''Macroeconomics: Imperfections, Institutions and Policies'' (with Wendy Carlin) * 2001: '' Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage'' (ed. with Peter A. Hall). * 2000: ''Unions, Employers and Central Banks: Wage Bargaining and Macroeconomic Regimes in an Integrating Europe'' (ed. with Torben Iversen, and Jonas Pontusson). * 1995: ''Institutional Frameworks and Labour Market Performance'' (ed. with Friedrich Buttler, Wolfgang Franz, and Ronald Schettkat). * 1990: ''Macroeconomics and the Wage Bargain: A Modern Approach to Employment, Inflation and Exchange Rates'' (with Wendy Carlin). * 1983: ''Unionism, Economic Stabilisation and Incomes Policies: European Experience'', (ed. with Robert Flanagan and Lloyd Ulman).

References

External links

Homepage at Duke University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soskice, David William 1942 births Living people Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford Alumni of Nuffield College, Oxford British economists Political economists Fellows of University College, Oxford People educated at Winchester College Fellows of the British Academy Academics of the London School of Economics Sons of life peers