insecure alliances risk inequality and support for the welfare state popular support for the welfare state varies greatly across nations and policy domains we argue that these variations vital to understanding the politics of the welfare state reflect in part the degree to which economic disadvantage low income and economic insecurity high risk are correlated when the disadvantaged and insecure are mostly one and the same the base of popular support for the welfare state is narrow when the disadvantaged and insecure represent two distinct groups popular support is broader and opinion less polarized we test these predictions both across nations within a single policy area unemployment insurance and across policy domains within a single polity the united states using a new survey results are consistent with our predictions and are robust to myriad controls and specifications when disadvantage and insecurity are more correlated the welfare state is more contested hy do citizens support the welfare state the answer remains as elusive as the question is fundamental we know that patterns of public support vary greatly across nations and domains of social policy we also know that these differences are associated with variations in levels of spending and program generosity brooks and manza 2006a 2006b 2007 kang and powell 2010 svallfors 1997 2004 yet there has only been limited effort to explain why patternsofpublicsupportvary thatis whyaggregatepublic support polarization of opinion and the breadth of opposition to the welfare state differ across societies and social policy areas in this article we develop such a proposition distinguish it from other leading claims and show that it finds strong confirmation not only in cross national analysis but also when examining popular support for different social policies within the united states the proposition is that the structure of support for the welfare state varies with the joint distribution of economic disadvantage low income and economic in

diminished expectations redistributive preferences in truncated welfare states in latin america the relationship between income and support for redistribution is weak and variable despite the region s extreme income inequality this article shows that this condition is rooted in the truncated structure of many latin american welfare states heavy spending on contributory social insurance for formal sector workers flat or regressive subsidies and informal access barriers mean that social spending does far less for the poor in latin america than it does in advanced industrial economies using public opinion data from across latin america and original survey data from colombia the author demonstrates that income is less predictive of attitudes in the countries and social policy areas in which the poor gain less from social expenditures social policy exclusion leads the poor to doubt that they will benefit from redistribution thereby dampening their support for it the article reverses an assumption in political economy models that welfare exclusion unleashes demands for greater redistribution instead truncation reinforces skepticism about social policy helping the poor welfare state reforms to promote social inclusion are essential to strengthen redistributive coalitions

the local structure of the welfare state uneven effects of social spending on poverty within countries research has shown that there is a strong negative relationship between social spending and poverty levels among urban inequality researchers it is often assumed that compared with the usa the welfare state has mitigated social differences explaining lower levels of urban inequality in most european countries however research on the role of the welfare state is often conducted on the national level and is thus unable to draw conclusions on the effects of social spending and redistribution on a lower level failing to take the within country variation into account this study connects welfare state research to urban inequality research by investigating the effects of social spending on poverty in urban and non urban areas we have conducted a cross national multilevel logistic regression analysis using eurostat and european social survey data of 2008 our findings suggest that the effects of social spending are unequally distributed within countries

the material consequences of welfare states benefit generosity and absolute poverty in 16 oecd countries several recent studies have focused attention on the relationship between welfare states and poverty looking primarily at relative poverty and employing concepts of welfare state generosity that are problematic this has made it difficult to evaluate claims that equality has come at the expense of economic growth in this article the authors examine more directly the relationship between welfare state generosity in three social insurance programs unemployment sickness and pensions and poverty levels in advanced industrial democracies in the past quarter of the 20th century the results strongly suggest that more generous entitlements to key social insurance programs are associated not only with lower relative poverty but also with lower absolute poverty this supports the contention that promoting relative economic equality can improve the absolute material well being of the poor however no evidence suggests that relatively more generous unemployment benefits systematically reduce poverty

budgetary units a weberian approach to consumption1 established consumption theory relies heavily on application of individualistic frames and market models of behavior a framework built around consumption oriented groups would facilitate progress toward a more general theory of consumption this article reintroduces and extends weber s budgetary unit concept to address this gap correcting key problems dogging the consumption literature the budgetary unit concept 1 offers a new framework for theorizing and better accounting for observed consumption patterns 2 reveals how consumption units have organizational logics preferences strengths and vulnerabilities that are consequentially distinct from market logic of production and profit and 3 focuses attention on social processes and features enabling theorization of general social patterns of consumption across diverse contexts this article highlights the explanatory power and broad applicability of weber s budgetary unit approach using the conventionally dissimilar cases of russian organized

paradoxes of social policy welfare transfers relative poverty and redistribution preferences korpi and palme s 1998 classic the paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality claims that universal social policy better reduces poverty than social policies targeted at the poor this article revisits korpi and palme s classic and in the process explores and informs a set of enduring questions about social policy politics and social equality specifically we investigate the relationships between three dimensions of welfare transfers transfer share the average share of household income from welfare transfers low income targeting and universalism and poverty and preferences for redistribution we analyze rich democracies like korpi and palme but we also generalize to a broader sample of developed and developing countries consistent with korpi and palme we show 1 poverty is negatively associated with transfer share and universalism 2 redistribution preferences are negatively associated with low income targeting and 3 universalism is positively associated with transfer share

employers and the welfare state the political economic organization of firms and social policy in contemporary capitalist democracies the authors argue that the organization of employers shapes social policy support among firms and in turn affects social policy outcomes specifically the authors argue that the centralization and cohesion of employer groups and economic cooperation across enterprises positively affects social welfare provision empirically the authors assess the impacts of business organization on social welfare effort in 15 developed democracies between the 1970s and 1990s the authors also provide analysis of the impact of employer organization on active labor market policy the authors find that the organization of employers is one of the most important determinants of overall social welfare effort the authors also find that employer organization affects the development of active labor market policies and it influences the degree to which social democratic parties pursue active labor market programs the authors conclude with a discussion of the findings implications for theories of social corporatism and the w

power resources and employer centered approaches in explanations of welfare states and varieties of capitalism protagonists consenters and antagonists the power resources approach underlining the relevance of socioeconomic class and partisan politics in distributive conflict within capitalist economies is challenged by employer centered approaches claiming employers and cross class alliances to have been crucial in advancing the development of welfare states and varieties of capitalism theoretically and empirically these claims are problematic in welfare state expansion employers have often been antagonists under specific conditions consenters but very rarely protagonists well developed welfare states and coordinated market economies have emerged in countries with strong left parties in long term cabinet participation or in countries with state corporatist institutional traditions and confessional parties in intensive competition with left parties

has the minimum wage policy been important for reducing poverty in brazil a decomposition analysis for the period from 2002 to 2013 abstract this study aims to analyze the contribution of the minimum wage valorization policy to the reduction in poverty that occurred in the first decade of the 21st century in brazil considering not only the incidence of poverty but also its intensity and severity a decomposition methodology was used to isolate the marginal contribution of the minimum wage in the observed changes taking into account the roles of setting the values of basic pension and social assistance benefits the beneficio de prestacao continuada or bpc in addition to setting the wage floor between 2002 and 2013 the minimum wage contributed to a 38 2 reduction in the proportion of impoverished people a 39 4 reduction in the intensity of poverty and 40 6 decrease in the severity of poverty our results also reveal geographic differences with the minimum wage being more important in the poorest regions

social democracy christian democracy constitutional structure and the welfare state the literature on the determinants of welfare state effort displays many inconsistencies and contradictins this article takes imoprtant stepts toward resolving these issues with the use of pooled

welfare and work incentives a north european perspective introduction a b atkinson work incentives a b atkinson taxes and transfers in sweden incentive effects on labour supply bjorn gtistafsson and anders klevmarken taxation and labour supply incentives in the uk richard blundell have social security benenfits seriously damaged work incentives in britain a b atkinson labour responses to taxes and benefits in germany klaus f zimmermann the welfare state and taxation in denmark peder j pedersen conclusions a b atkinson bibliography index contributors

auto credit and the 2005 bankruptcy reform the impact of eliminating cramdowns auto lenders were perhaps the biggest winners of the 2005 bankruptcy reform as chapter 13 bankruptcy filers can no longer cramdown the amount owed on recent auto loans we estimate the causal effect of this anticramdown provision on the price and quantity of auto credit exploiting historical variation in states usage of chapter 13 bankruptcy we find strong evidence that eliminating cramdowns decreased interest rates and some evidence that loan sizes increased among subprime borrowers the decline in interest rates is persistent and is robust to a battery of sensitivity checks we rule out other reform changes as possible causes received september 29 2016 editorial decision january 15 2019 by editor philip strahan authors have furnished an internet appendix which is available on the oxford university press web site next to the link to the final published paper online

who gives who gains progressivity and preferences the extent to which popular support for the welfare state depends on income varies greatly across nations and policy domains we argue and show formally that these variations largely overlooked yet essential to understanding the politics of redistribution reflect in part the design of tax and transfer policies in terms of progressivity when progressivity is high politics is perceived by income groups as a zero sum game and conflicts over who gets what intensify when progressivity is low and tax contributors and benefit recipients overlap redistributive struggles become politically less salient we test these predictions both across nations and across policy domains within a sample of advanced industrial democracies our findings indicate that the progressivity of the tax and transfer system is a major determinant of the predictive power of income on preferences for redistribution

distinguished lecture on economics in government data quality and public policy the public policy use of statistical data has increased markedly over the last half century today this country uses statistical series to redistribute income and to fine tune the economy we mandate use of statistical series in a number of our country s laws and we use data to evaluate policy alternatives competing interpretations of statistics on income inflation and unemployment figure prominently in our election campaigns we use statistics to evaluate risk in legislative policy on toxicity and the environment and we use statistics in our governmental efforts to contain the cost of health care under these circumstances the federal government s data system must produce data that are of high enough quality for the demands that are placed upon them but how can we maintain a data system of high quality in an increasingly complex society while at the same time cutting back on government expenditures 1 the quality of a statistical indicator is sometimes elusive and often difficult to define effective measurement requires an underlying conceptual framework and careful identification of the phenomenon to be estimated in the statistical series consider for a moment the task of quality management in a government statistical agency like the u s bureau of labor statistics bls our task is to measure economic and social phenomena which frequently change as does society s view of the 1 for example the appropriations for the bureau of labor statistics have been reduced by nearly 14 5 million over the last 3 years due to deficit reduction legislation these reductions taken proportionately in all bls programs were 9 743 million in fiscal year 1988 2 839 million in fiscal year 1989 and 1 827 million in fiscal year 1990

political resources and the growth of welfare in affluent capitalist democracies 1960 1982 explanations of welfare effort in affluent postwar democracies are partially integrated within a political resource framework political resource models of welfare effort fare well when tested with pooled time series data for 1960 82 use of governmental authority by the left use of disruption by the working class and the petty burgeois and use of lobbying voting and or entitlement rights by the elderly and the unemployed constitute means of political action among more diffusely available infraresources state revenue expansion economic growth and inflation appear to buoy welfre expansion as do left corporatism and bureaucratic paternalism some mediating effects of economic epoch and state structure are explored

social policy by popular demand why are unemployment benefits more generous in some countries this article argues that citizens trade off the redistributive and insuring effect of social insurance as a result the distribution of risk in a society has important consequences via popular demand for social policy making at the microlevel the article shows that in addition to income the risk of unemployment is a key predictor of individual level preferences for unemployment benefits based on the microlevel findings the article argues that at the macrolevel the homogeneity of the risk pool is an important determinant of benefit generosity the more equally unemployment risk is distributed the higher unemployment replacement rates are empirical testing at both levels finds support for this account of social policy by popular demand

explaining social policy preferences evidence from the great recession to what extent do personal circumstances as compared to ideological dispositions drive voters preferences on welfare policy addressing this question is difficult because a person s ideological position can be an outcome of material interest rather than an independent source of preferences the article deals with this empirical challenge using an original panel study carried out over four years tracking the labor market experiences and the political attitudes of a national sample of americans before and after the eruption of the financial crisis the analysis shows that the personal experience of economic hardship particularly the loss of a job had a major effect on increasing support for welfare spending this effect was appreciably larger among republicans than among democrats a result that was not simply due to a ceiling effect however the large attitudinal shift was short lived dissipating as individuals employment situations improved the results indicate that the personal experience of an economic shock has a sizable yet overall transient effect on voters social policy preferences

capitalist systems deindustrialization and the politics of public education recent years have seen a number of studies on the determinants of educational spending almost all of the existing work emphasizes the importance of left wing governments as a motor of expansion because such expansion allegedly ensures both redistribution and the facilitation of a supply side economy the existing literature thereby corroborates the power resource theory against this common wisdom the article presents an argument building on the varieties of capitalism approach it is argued that education is a poor instrument for redistribution because access is universal and high income groups have a tendency to use education even more than low income groups instead we argue that deindustrialization is the main driver of educational spending because deindustrialization constitutes one of the most salient threats to workers in modern societies as deindustrialization rises workers risk ending up with redundant skills especially in countries where the average skills specificity is high that is coord

swedish economic performance and swedish economic debate a view from outside the papers by korpi henrekson and agell raise important questions both about the swedish economy and about the way in which evidence on economic growth should be handled in debate on economic policy i want to comment in particular on the fundamental question of whether the international evidence allows us to judge that swedish growth has been below par the papers raise two further questions on the first whether growth is inhibited by high taxation and a large welfare state the hallmarks of the post war swedish economy agell provides as good an assessment of the cross country macroeconomic evidence as we can probably hope to get at the moment unproven on the final vexed question of whether the structure of the economics profession has been inimical to open debate i have only a few comments to make let me start with the criteria and method by which we should attempt to assess relative economic performance this is a methodological minefield there are numerous paths leading to divergent conclusions the least we can do is to be explicit about our choices and subject our provisional conclusions to some checks for robustness what performance measure is relevant we could look at gdp or consumption scaled per head of population or per member of the workforce or per hour worked what deflators do we use we can reduce measures denominated in local currency to a common unit using exchange rates or using fixed international prices or using utility based indexes which derivative of the performance measure do we use we might want to compare levels or rankings or we might choose to assess relative rates of growth or even relative changes in growth rates which time period is relevant in particular comparisons of growth rates are often very sensitive to choice of start and end years when business cycle fluctuations are asynchronous what is the reference pointfor assessing underor overachievement the definition of par might be either the best performance or average performance for some group of countries for some period of time finally what exogenousfactors are to be taken into account we might wish to control for the influence on our preferred performance measure of a wide range of factors which are extraneous to the policy question under examination i will take a brisk jog through this minefield explaining briefly some of the choices which seem most relevant to the problem in hand but without attempting a full exposition of the problems the most usual starting place is to choose real gdp per capita as a measure of aggregate performance this

preferences in context micro preferences macro contexts and the demand for social policy political economists have increasingly looked to understand social welfare policy as a product of individual level demand for social spending this work hypothesizes that individuals with riskier j

a paradox of redistribution in international aid the determinants of poverty oriented development assistance summary donors differ in the amount of official development assistance dedicated to poverty reduction we investigate the causes of variation over time and donors by employing both a regression approach with aggregate data on bilateral aid and two short country studies on germany and the united kingdom we find that there is a trade off between the total amount of money given and the amount of money given to poor countries the trade off is similar to the paradox of redistribution of targeting vs redistribution in rich welfare states case study evidence illustrates how countries have managed this tradeoff

institutional feedback and support for the welfare state the case of national health care researchers interested in the political consequences of the welfare state argue that cross country variations in the design of social policy institutions produce distinct patterns of public support for the welfare state this research proposes an institutional feedback effect in which welfare institutions once created transform political debate generate new constituencies and alter how individuals and interest groups interpret their preferences existing research has found mixed results for these proposed institutional feedback effects on public opinion this project contributes to research on institutional feedback through an analysis of cross national variation in public support for national health care national health care provides a unique opportunity for studying institutional feedback by avoiding problems with the measurement of key variables common to previous work in this area this research offers evidence in support of institutional feedback effects by demonstrating links between the struct

welfare states and social trust this article tests the linkage between institutional configuration and social trust highlighting the role of the welfare states in coordinating interests among different labor market actors this study initially builds a theoretical framework distinguishing training supplemented welfare regimes from transfer based welfare regimes evidence from descriptive and multivariate analyses of world values survey based on 17 advanced industrial democracies supports my argument that public investment in skill provision prevalent in training supplemented welfare states leads to higher accumulation of social trust whereas passive social transfers result in lower social trust especially high investment in public skill provision leads to a decreased gap in social trust between employers and low skilled workers as well as among different occupational groups in addition the negative effect of passive social transfers on trust is greatly ameliorated when it is jointly configured with high active labor market polici

the paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality welfare state institutions inequality and poverty in the western countries the structure of welfare state institutions 2 a trade off exists between the degree of low income targeting and the size of redistributive budgets 3 outcomes of market based distribution are often more unequal than those of earnings related social insurance programs we argue that social insurance institutions are of central importance for redistributive outcomes using new data our comparative analyses of the effects of different institutional types of welfare states on poverty and inequality indicate that institutional differences lead to unexpected outcomes and generate the paradox of redistribution the more we target benefits at the poor and the more concerned we are with creating equality via equal public transfers to all the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality social scientists and social reformers have long debated how the welfare state and social policies should be designed so as to best reduce poverty and inequality this debate involves two different issues one question concerns whether social policies should be targeted or universal that is should they be organized for the poor only or should the welfare state include all citizens in the context of nontargeted programs another question concerns the level of benefits should benefits be equal for all or should they be related to previous earnings and in

poverty inequality and income distribution in comparative perspective the luxembourg income study lis the luxembourg income study is a unique database that makes possible comparisons between countries at the individual and family levels seven countries are in the database at present and more are being added on a regular basis this book describes the technical and methodological aspects of the lis database and uses lis data to compare income distribution and redistribution poverty and the relationship between age and income across nations

stopped in the name of the law administrative burden and its implications for cash transfer program effectiveness summary cash transfer programs have achieved wide ranging success in reducing poverty yet there is little empirical research on how program rules and administrative capacity might limit program effectiveness we examine administrative burden and quantify its implications for grant access and impacts in the south african child support grant csg program as the age of eligibility and application requirements changed over time we find that approximately 60 of the sampled children experienced an interruption or disconnection in cash transfer receipt and that both timing and dosage loss are associated with adolescent engagement in risky behaviors and for females lower educational attainment

determinants of relative poverty in advanced capitalist democracies using relative poverty measures based on micro level data from the luxembourg income study in conjunction with pooled time series data for 14 advanced capitalist democracies between 1970 and 1997 the authors analyze separately the rate of pretax transfer poverty and the reduction in poverty achieved by systems of taxes and transfers socioeconomic factors including de industrialization and unemployment largely explain pre tax transfer poverty rates of the working age population in these advanced capitalist democracies the extent of redistribution measured as poverty reduction via taxes and transfers is explained directly by welfare state generosity and constitutional structure number of veto points and the strength of the political left both in unions and in government

the geography of inequality difference and determinants of wage and income inequality across us metros florida r and mellander c the geography of inequality difference and determinants of wage and income inequality across us metros regional studies this paper examines the geographic variation in wage inequality and income inequality across us metros the findings indicate that the two are quite different wage inequality is closely associated with skills human capital technology and metro size in line with the literature but these factors are only weakly associated with income inequality furthermore wage inequality explains only 15 of income inequality across metros income inequality is more closely associated with unionization race and poverty no relationship is found between income inequality and average incomes and only a modest relationship between it and the percentage of high income households