Welfare economics Books
Amsterdam University Press Religion, Class, and the Postwar Development of
Book SynopsisThis book examines how the Netherlands managed to create and maintain one of the world’s most generous and inclusive welfare systems despite having been dominated by Christian-democratic or ŸconservativeŒ, rather than socialist dominated governments, for most of the post-war period. It emphasizes that such systems have strong consequences for the distribution of income and risk among different segments of society and argues that they could consequently only emerge in countries where middle class groups were unable to utilize their key electoral and strong labor market position to mobilize against the adverse consequences of redistribution for them. By illustrating their key role in the coming about of solidaristic welfare reform in the Netherlands, the book also offers a novel view of the roles of Christian-democracy and the labor union movement in the development of modern welfare states. By highlighting how welfare reform contributed to the employment miracle of the 1990s, the book sheds new light on how countries are able to combine high levels of welfare generosity and solidarity with successful macro-economic performance.Trade Review'Oude-Nijhuis's book on the Dutch welfare state stands out as one of the most astute and comprehensive studies ever of social policy evolution in a capitalist democracy. Because of its fine-grained historical research and careful analysis, comparativists have in it a model for future research and thinking on the capitalist welfare state.' - Peter A. Swenson, BA Princeton University, Ph.D. Yale University, is Yale's C.M. Saden Professor of Political ScienceTable of ContentsLIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PREFACE Part I: HISTORY AND THEORY 1. The Dutch Welfare Puzzle 2. The Politics of Social Solidarity Part II. THE POLITICS OF WELFARE STATE EXPANSION 3. Welfare Reform in the Age of Austerity 4. Welfare State Expansion and the Confessional Preoccupation with Self-help and Personal Responsibility 5. Completing the Social Insurance System 6. Catering to the Low Paid Part III. THE POLITICS OF RETRENCHMENT 7. The Emergence of Welfare Without Work 8. Tackling the Inactivity Crisis 9. Towards an Active Welfare State 10 Population Ageing and the Need for Further Reform Part IV. CONCLUSION 11. The Political Determinants of Solidaristic Reform Notes Index
£111.15
World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd Rich Get Richer, The: American Wage, Wealth And
Book SynopsisInequality of wages among workers and inequality of income and wealth among families and households has been rising steadily for the past half-century in the United States and other developed economies. However, the United States stands out for having the most unequal wage and income distributions to begin with and for experiencing the fastest rise in inequality over the following decades. While this has been a long-developing situation and the subject of academic interest for some time, it is only in the last decade or so that inequality has attracted considerable public attention and become a political issue. Inequality has also become a subject of renewed interest among economists, with a growing number of scholars engaged in the development of new databases and the analysis of the causes and effects of increased inequality.This book provides an overview of the economic analysis of wage, income and wealth inequality in the United States, with a focus on this recent research. It provides the reader with an understanding of the complex causes of rising inequality, the serious consequences that make rising inequality an issue for public policy, and the potential policy actions that might be taken to slow or reverse rising inequality. The author presents an economic and statistical analysis in clear non-technical language to allow the general reader or student in an undergraduate course to learn the insights that economists have gained into the issue of inequality in advanced economies.The book contends that rising wage inequality among workers and income and wealth inequality among families reflects the complex interaction of profound changes in the US economy over the last half-century. These are not limited to economic changes like new technology, increased globalization, changes in the internal structure of firms, and the rise of new growth sectors in tech, finance, and health care. Of additional critical importance are changes in public opinion and political platforms and policies that replaced the New Deal view of the economic role of government with a pro-business, free-market philosophy that has changed labor market policy in a direction promoting increased inequality. This major change in the environment raises important questions about the efficacy of policy proposals. An additionally intriguing issue is the ultimate impact of the financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic on perceptions of and support for government policies designed to reverse the seemingly inexorable trend toward greater inequality. This book traces the evolution of inequality over time through key concept illustrations and language that is easy enough to understand, even for the general reader.
£66.50
Springer Verlag, Singapore An Essay on the Principle of Sustainable Population
Book SynopsisThis book focuses on the future of the global population and proposes revising Malthus’ Law. The United Nations estimates that the global population will top 11 billion by 2100, at which point its growth will be near an end: it will find a new equilibrium in a long demographic transition from high birth and death rates to low ones. However, the author reviews the fertility developments reported in the World Population Prospects 2017, which are near or below the replacement level in most regions, with the important exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, and warns of a possible scenario of the extinction of human society. Returning to Malthus, his Essay on the Principle of Population is critically reconsidered. Simple simulations show that exponential growth and decay are unsustainable beyond the narrow ranges of the net reproduction rate. In addition, the length of reproduction periods, which depends on women’s lifespans, plays a pivotal role. The limits of growth are given in any case, to the extent that time and space will permit.From this perspective, teleological conditions such as instinct, passion, or even natural reproductive tendencies are irrelevant and unnecessary. When the population deviates too far from the replacement level, either its shrinking or massive growth will overshoot the limits of its existence. This principle of sustainable population indicates that the demographic transition must follow a logistic curve. Using a system dynamics approach, the author constructs a simulation model based on four major loops: fertility, reproduction timing, social capital accumulation, and lifespan. Using only endogenous variables, this model successfully reproduces the historical process of the demographic transition in Japan. Thereby, it shows that the timing and periods of reproduction, maximum fertility, and maximum lifespan hold the key to sustainability. Based on these findings, the author subsequently discusses recovering replacement fertility, extending lifespans, and the demographic future of the human race. Table of Contents1. Introduction：The Sustainability of World Population.- 2. The Principle of Sustainable Population.- 3. Designing the Demographic Transition Model.- 4. Simulating the Demographic Transition.- 5 Thinking about the Demographic Future of Human Society.- 6. Epilogue：Beyond the Demographic Consideration.- References.- List of Tables and Figures.
£52.24
Springer Verlag, Singapore Social Choice Theory: An Introductory Text
Book SynopsisThis introductory textbook on social choice theory makes the social choice theoretic framework and its main results, that have a direct bearing on the discourses on electoral rules and policy evaluation, accessible to a larger audience. The text is essentially self-contained. No previous knowledge of mathematical logic or relational algebra is assumed. Whatever technical prerequisites are needed, are developed in the text itself. Although the text is at an introductory level, there has been no compromise on rigor. Unlike most introductory books, the relevant proofs are not omitted; rather, they have been explained in detail. The text has a large number of examples so that the concepts and results become clear to the reader. There is a large number of exercises with full solutions provided at the end of the text, so that the reader can check her/his understanding of the material.Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Elementary Logic.- Sets, Relations, Functions.- Binary Relations.- Social Choice Theoretic Framework and Arrow Impossibility Theorem.- Some Important Value-Judgments, Rules and Theorems.- Implications of Weakening of Some of Arrow Conditions.- The Method of Majority Decision: Conditions for Transitivity and Quasi-Transitivity.- Strategic Aspects.- Summary and Concluding Remarks.
£71.24
World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd Equality Of Opportunity: The Economics Of
Book SynopsisForeword by Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2007)This book is a collection of articles written by the two authors on the topic of equality of opportunity. All articles build on the idea that a just society should equalize the resources that determine the opportunities agents face in order to follow their goals. Resources are either external, like financial resources, or internal, like preferences or skills. The authors propose to define “equality of opportunity” as the combination of ethical principles of compensation and responsibility. The principle of compensation requires external resources to be used to compensate low-skilled agents (considering that inequalities due to skill differences are unjust). The principle of responsibility requires external resources to be allocated without regards to inequalities due to differences in preferences (considering that these inequalities are not unjust). The articles present different ways of combining the two principles in different economic contexts.The book offers many possible aspects of the analysis of equality of opportunity, ranging from axiomatic discussions in abstract compensation models, to the design of redistribution policies in concrete labor income taxation models.Table of ContentsIntroduction; The Pure Compensation Problem; On Fair Compensation; Three Solutions for the Compensation Problem; On the Equivalence Between Welfarism and Equality of Opportunity; Unequal Earning Abilities and Income Redistribution; Fair Allocation with Unequal Production Skills: The No-Envy Approach to Compensation; Cooperative Production with Unequal Skills: The Solidarity Approach to Compensation; An Equal Right Solution to the Compensation-Responsibility Dilemma; Fair Social Orderings When Agents Have Unequal Production Skills; Fair Income Tax; Help the Low Skilled, or Let the Hardworking Thrive? A Study of Fairness in Optimal Income Taxation; Kolm's Tax, Tax Credit and the Flat Tax.
£102.60
