scholarly journals Welfare States’ Social Investment Strategies and the Emergence of Dutch Experiments on a Minimum Income Guarantee

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loek Groot ◽  
Ruud Muffels ◽  
Timo Verlaat
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Minimum Income ◽  
Policy Practice

The focus in welfare state support in the Netherlands has been shifted from workfare and activation policies to social investment strategies. The discourse on basic income and the related municipal experiments highlights this shift. We address the inspiration found in basic income and behavioural economic and motivational psychological theoretical insights for the design of the experiments and for new avenues of minimum income protection and providing participation opportunities for the disadvantaged. The emerging new paradigm also implies a shift in the cultural values and principles on which welfare state policies are implicitly founded. This means that in these endeavours particular social values are put more upfront, such as personal autonomy (capacitating people by providing opportunities and therewith ‘free choice’) and trust (activating people by putting trust in their self-management capacities) which in day-to-day policy practice means more tailor-made, demand-oriented integrated mediation and coaching while rewarding people instead of penalising them.

scholarly journals Social Investment, Redistribution or Basic Income? Exploring the Association Between Automation Risk and Welfare State Attitudes in Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
MARIUS R. BUSEMEYER ◽  
ALEXANDER H. J. SAHM
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Rapid technological change – the digitalization and automation of work – is challenging contemporary welfare states. Most of the existing research, however, focuses on its effect on labor market outcomes, such as employment or wage levels. In contrast, this paper studies the implications of technological change for welfare state attitudes and preferences. Compared to previous work on this topic, this paper adopts a much broader perspective regarding different kinds of social policy. Using data from the European Social Survey, we find that individual automation risk is positively associated with support for redistribution, but negatively with support for social investment policies (partly depending on the specific measure of automation risk that is used), while there is no statistically significant association with support for basic income. We also find a moderating effect of the overall size of the welfare state on the micro-level association between risk and preferences.

A Social Investment Turn in East Asia?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Fleckenstein ◽  
Soohyun Christine Lee
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Employment Participation

The welfare states of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were built by conservative elites to serve the project of late industrialization, and for this reason the East Asian developmental welfare state focused its resources on those who were deemed most important for economic development (especially male industrial workers). Starting in the 1990s and increasingly since the 2000s, the developmental welfare state has experienced a far-reaching transformation, including the expansion of family policy to address the post-industrial challenges of female employment participation and low fertility. This chapter assesses social investment policies in East Asia, with a focus on family policy and on the South Korean case, where the most comprehensive rise of social investment policies were observed.

The Second Marriage of Justice and Efficiency

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe van Parijs
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTNo major reform of the welfare state has a chance of going through unless one can make a plausible case as to both its ‘ethical value’ and its ‘economic.value’, that is, that it would have a positive effect in terms of both justice and efficiency. In this essay, this rough conjecture is first presented, and its plausibility probed, on the background of some stylised facts about the rise of modern welfare states in the postwar period. Next, the focus is shifted to the current debate on the introduction of a basic income, a completely unconditional grant paid ex ante to all citizens. It is argued that if basic income is to have a chance of meeting the strong twofold condition stipulated in the conjecture, some major changes are required in the way one usually thinks about justice and efficiency in connection with social policy. But once these changes are made, as they arguably must be, the chance that basic income may be able to meet the challenge is greatly enhanced.

Is social investment inimical to the poor?

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 857-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Noël
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Minimum Income ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Active Labor ◽  
Active Labor Market Programs ◽  
Active Labor Market

Abstract In the last two decades, the social investment strategy has been the main approach to welfare state reform. Concretely, two spending programs have dominated the agenda: the expansion of active labor market programs and the development of childcare services. Many authors have suspected, however, that these social investments were realized at the expense of income protection for the poor. This article assesses this potential trade-off with time-series cross-sectional models of the determinants of active labor market policies expenditures, childcare spending and the adequacy of minimum income protection (MIP), for 18 OECD countries between 1990 and 2009. It turns out that social investments are rather akin to traditional welfare state programs, and are explained by similar institutional, political and economic factors. More importantly, they do not develop at the expense of income protection. Social investment initiatives are consistent with the usual politics of the welfare state and, overall, they are not inimical to the poor.

scholarly journals Welfare without rent seeking? Buchanan’s demogrant proposal and the possibility of a constitutional welfare state

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Otto Lehto ◽  
John Meadowcroft
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Constitutional Political Economy ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Majoritarian Democracy ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Future Task ◽  
Negative Income Tax

AbstractIn a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’—a form of universal basic income that applied the principles of generality and non discrimination to the tax and the transfer sides of the scheme and was to be implemented as a constitutional rule outside the realm of day-to-day politics. The demogrant has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, but this article locates it in Buchanan’s broader constitutional political economy project and shows it was a logical application of his theoretical framework to the problem of inefficient and unfair welfare systems when reform to the basic institutions of majoritarian democracy was not forthcoming. The demogrant aims to end the problems of majority cycling and rent seeking that plague contemporary welfare states and therefore offers a model of welfare without rent seeking—a constitutional welfare state. We compare Buchanan’s demogrant model to other universal basic income and negative income tax models and consider the most important criticisms. We conclude that rescuing the demogrant model from relative obscurity would be a fruitful future task of applied constitutional political economy and public choice.

Social Investment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Conceptual Base ◽  
Economic Rationale

Social investment has come to play a major part in debates about the role of social spending and the future of welfare states in Europe, in part because it has significant appeal to different audiences. This chapter argues that social investment can be seen as a (new) paradigm for social policies and spending, as a conceptual base and framework for analysis, and as a basis for political or rhetorical advocacy. There may, however, be a tension between these functions which needs to be recognized. This is brought out when one asks whether social investment can credibly be presented as the paradigm most likely to underpin strong job-friendly economic growth, and whether the distinction between social ‘investment’ and other social spending is conceptually and empirically robust. Finally, the chapter wonders whether focusing on that distinction, and on a narrowly economic rationale, is the most productive way to frame the debate.

Changing labour markets, changing welfare across the OECD: the move towards a social investment model of welfare as a response to competition

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Naomi Finch ◽  
Dan Horsfall ◽  
John Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Investment Model ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Expenditures

This chapter examines in more depth one of the attempts to develop a ‘progressive’ modernisation of welfare: the social investment model. The notion of a ‘social investment welfare state’ has gained increasing ground over recent years, playing an important role in the discourse of international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and EU. It forms a part of a number of concepts — others include ‘active social welfare’, the ‘new welfare state’ and ‘new risk welfare’ — that might be grouped under the label ‘new welfare’. All are based around a shared view that developed welfare states have begun to place less emphasis on income protection and more emphasis on investing in human capital. Put differently, they stress the growing importance of the ‘productive’ elements of social policy, chiefly on the basis that this may square the circle of maintaining social expenditures while responding to increased economic competition. The chapter then reviews how far reform agendas match the reality of the social investment model theory and, moreover, evaluates the effectiveness of the approach in reconciling social and economic pressures.

scholarly journals From social security to social investment? Compensating and social investment welfare policies in a life-course perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 442-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kati Kuitto
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Path Dependent

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the forms and characteristics of social investment policies and their potential trade-off with social security schemes by assessing developments of welfare spending profiles in 23 European welfare states in the 2000s. I argue that if a social investment turn has indeed occurred, it is not necessarily at the cost of the ‘old’ compensatory policies. Instead, social investment policies and their relation to compensating welfare policies alter with regard to policies targeted at different life-stages and to the type of welfare regime. Therefore, the results attest to a path-dependent trend within the welfare regimes, the Nordic countries remaining clear forerunners in terms of both level and dynamics of social investment policies. European social investment strategies manifest mainly in policies targeting childhood and youth, while a trade-off between social investment and compensating policies is evident in working-age policies to some degree.

When voters favour the social investment welfare state

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 194-205
Author(s):  
Marc Brazzill ◽  
Hideko Magara ◽  
Yuki Yanai
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
The Social

AbstractWe investigate when voters favour social investment. Welfare states have transformed their core policies as a result of low economic growth and fiscal pressures. The social investment strategy, such as broader education provision and promotion of women's employment, aims at shifting the economy from the traditional Keynesian welfare state to the high-productivity economy by encouraging long-term and inclusive human capital formation. Social investment is popular among citizens in many developed economies, especially in the EU where governments promote social investment as part of their welfare policy packages. However, in Japan, the term ‘social investment’ is rarely used in policy discussions. Consequently, we ask what levels of voter support social investment policies have in such an environment; which voter characteristics are associated with social investment support; and whether voter support for social investment differs when placed in a broader policy context. To answer these questions, we conducted an online survey with a conjoint experiment. Our data analysis shows that social investment policies are popular among Japanese people, despite a lack of familiarity with the concept of social investment. We find that social libertarians and female respondents are more likely than social authoritarians and male respondents to support social investment. In addition, there is some evidence that higher income voters are favourable to social investment policies. Furthermore, voter support for social investment depends on the policy context. Support becomes weaker when social investment policies are presented in combination with decreasing levels of social security spending. Our results highlight what kinds of social investment policies could be achieved without damaging electoral fortunes.

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