Do you mean by the VOC the research program adopted by Hall and Soskice in their book Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage? Régualtion approach people also use the concept "varieties of capitalism".

The VOC research program adopted by Hall and Soskice, yes.

It seems to me that the answer to your question here would depend on the research question that you are asking for your project.

I think it is conducive and my judgement is based on the fact that financialization is a subgroup of a broader system intertwining all other and also a product of a quest to reductionism. In view of the latter, societies unaware of the intrinsic dangers of reductionism used in models and constructs are prone to dangers never fully understood even by most prominent economists. Hence, crises, crashes and catastrophies and also persistent inequalities and imbalances. The original question asked by David invariabky leads us to the problem of complexity, how we deal with it, do we use reliable tools, do we know the risks incorporated, do we transmit those risks to the public, can complexities be controlled and to what an extent and what are the consequences of the existence of holistic systems. I find David's question a far more difficult to answer than I thought at a glance and also one of the most valuable questions.       

I am rather doubtful if VOC approach (Hall and Soskice type) has anything concrete to analyse global financialization. I will explain in the subsequent post that VOC approach has a serious theory defect that prevents it analyse and examine globalization phenomenon.

Financialization has been a big topic for Regulationists since 1980's, for they considered finacialization as successor to Fordist regime of accumulation.  They have many books and papers on this theme.

It will be helpful and informative for you to read a review paper like van der Zwan's  

STATE OF THE ART: Making sense of financialization. Socio-Economic Review (2014) 12: 99–129. (see the link below)

It contains major survey on three major approaches: accumulation approach, share value approach and everyday life approach.  

http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/1/99.full.pdf+html

Economics is plentiful of serious theory defects, and talking about VOC in such a manner is more retrospective than cognitive. Economists have committed so many murders that one should wonder when or if we live up to the year when people would be less affected by "serious" pseudo-scientific dissertations honoured by the Nobel Committee.

Anything concrete to analyze global financialization? Use modern tools and the new paradigms derived from the theory of chaos and good luck.   

@Paul

I agree that mainstream economics has its defects, but how is my consternation more retrospective than cognitive? Please be specific. And what do you mean by modern tools related to chaos theory? as chaos theory is not uniform...

@Yoshinori

Can expand on what you consider to be VOC's theory defect?

And when you are referring to the Regulationists, would you include, in particular, authors affiliated with the Social Structures of Accumulation (SSA) School, e.g. Kotz, Gordon, Weiskopf, McDonough, et. al.?

Article Financialization and neoliberalism

Article Social Structures of Accumulation: A “Punctuated” View of Embeddedness

@Jikon,

My original question may have been a bit vague - the concrete research question has to do with relationships between development, growth, and monetary sovereignty - more on this in another post. 

Dear all,

I was wrong in saying that the VOC approach has a serious theory defect that prevents it analyse and examine globalization phenomenon. As Paul says, any theory has some defects and that is why we continue our research. I should be more positive.

I will explain later why I am dissatisfied or  frustrated with the VOC approach. To give a  short account for the moment, the problem concerns the fact that they claim their theory to be "institutional foundations of comparative advantage."

I admit that VOC approach people have a good program to analyse varieties of capitalism in each country. Concepts like  institutional complementarities and others are very good. An economy should be analysed as a network of institutions. I do not contest the classification they make as types of capitalism.

However, their notion of  "comparative advantage"  has no functional meaning. They compare various capitalism and intend to tell which is advantageous. I don't think they have presented any clear explanation how an economy has comparatively advantage with respect to others. They may  have only a naive intention that they compare different  varieties and examine which is more likely to develop (in any sense you like), but "comparative advantage" has much more concrete meaning in economics. That is why I think Hall and Soskice's claim is a false advertising.

David Fields,

 van der Zwan includes in the same group, i.e. accumulation approach, various strands including post-Keynesianeconomists, economic sociologists and critical international political economists, although he mentions Regulationists most often. There is no explicit mention on the SSA school.    

I  thank you for information on SSA people's works.

I made a very short (and not so exact) survey how SSA is treated in van der Zwan (2014). I picked up one article and a book in the SSA scholarship and counted how many of people in SSA appeare in the list of references.

The article is Lippit (2006) "Social Structure of Accumulation Theory" and the book is McDonough, Reich, and Kotz (2010) Contemporary Capitalism and its Crises: Social Structure of Accumulation Theory for the 21st Century. Eventually  Lippit (2006) is adopted as a chapter in McDonough, Reich, and Kotz (2010).

I am sorry for this rather arbitrary choice.

Lippi (2006) had no common citation. Authors on McDonough, Reich, and Kotz (2010)'s list only two names appeared in more than 140 titles in the reference of van der Zwan (2014). They are Boyer and Kotz.

What does this mean? David, can you give any account?

Why I am dissatisfied with VoC. 

Why am I dissatisfied with VoC's fundamental research  program. Before putting my points, I want to add a few words on what points I agree with it. To be brief, I itemize my points. 

(1) Institutions matter.

(2) Institutional complementarities are important.

(3) Varieties of capitalism or differences of structures and networks of institutions may continue to exist. The neo-liberal convergence thesis is not supported.  

(4) Dichotomy between Liberal Market Economy and Coordinated Market Economy is one of many other possible classification of national economy types. Typology is a convenient way of presentation but not a true method of analysis how market economy evolves.

Here are the points (among many) why I am dissatisfied with VoC research program. I focus my arguments on the explanations and reasoning of Hall and Sockice in their Introduction (mainly section 6 Comparative Institutional Advantage)to their book  Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (2001). 

(1) They (Hall and Sockice) are still based on 2 by 2 simple model of comparative advantage. Although they know there are many objections and facts which refute Hecksher-Ohlin-Samuelson theory (HOS theory), or factor proportion theory (FPT) of comparative advantage (including Hecksher-Ohlin-Vanek theory), they are still arguing based on the analogy of this factor proportion theory.

(2) The basic flaw of the FPT lies on the assumption that trading countries have the same technology, or system of techniques. Once we admit that there are differences of technologies for each country, the factor proportion plays very little role except for exhaustible resources like crude oil or iron ore.

(3) The FPT has a very bad policy implications and they are sometimes fatal in making  or thinking of industrial policies.

Let me explain the last point.

Take an example of India. It has a very large army of highly skilled engineers in the ICT or other edge technologies. But, as Indian population is huge (1.3 trillion people),  the proportion of skilled engineers may be smaller than say the USA. Given this, is it right that India has comparative advantage in low skilled industries? Do firms in India have no chance of succeeding in the ICT or any other edge technology based  industries?

The FPT tells yes. This conclusion is, however, a total error. Competitiveness first  operate on firms, not on nations. If a firm can produce a unique product that no other firms can produce, that product may conquer the world. If several firms are competing to sell similar products of the same quality, it is the price (then the production cost) which determines which firm's product can take the dominant position.

In the case of India, a firm in the ICT or any other edge technology has a special advantage than those in the USA, because they have large enough number of excellent and talented engineers (for a firm) and they work voluntarily with relatively cheap wages. The only thing they lack may be experience. Then the government may take a strategic industry policy in promoting edge technology industries.  

As a conclusion to my brief intervention, let me add tree points.

(1) International trade is a business which straddles national frontiers but  the principle does not differ with other trades inside of a nation. It necessitate some extra knowledge and costs but the competitiveness lies on the quality and price of the product (or service). Most of textbook knowledge of comparative advantage are erroneous and demand a total revision.  

(2) A new theory of international trade is already provided. See some of my papers below.

(3) Main analysis of VoC approach can be adjusted if one understands real nature of international trade and competition.   

Article A New Construction of Ricardian Trade Theory--A Many-country...

Article Inter and Intra Company Competition in the Age of Global Com...

Conference Paper The Revival of Classical Theory of Values