Developing Appropriate Investment Policies: The Foundation Perspective

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.

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Book Review:The Impact of Valuation Requirements on the Preferred Stock Investment Policies of Life Insurance Companies. Alden C. Olson

The Journal of Business ◽

10.1086/294811 ◽

1965 ◽

Vol 38 (4) ◽

pp. 425

Author(s):

Donald A. Fergusson

Keyword(s):

Life Insurance ◽

Insurance Companies ◽

Investment Policies ◽

Preferred Stock ◽

Stock Investment

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Social Investment, Employment and Policy and Institutional Complementarities: A Comparative Analysis across 26 OECD Countries

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279421000386 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-23

Author(s):

VINCENT BAKKER ◽

OLAF VAN VLIET

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Positive Association ◽

Oecd Countries ◽

Employment Outcomes ◽

Social Investment ◽

Investment Policies ◽

Employment Rates ◽

Marginal Returns ◽

Welfare State Regimes

Abstract Raising employment has been at the heart of EU strategies for over twenty years. Social investment, by now a widely debated topic in the comparative welfare state literature, has been suggested as a way to pursue this. However, there are only a couple of systematic comparative analyses that focus on the employment outcomes associated with social investment. Analyses of the interdependence of these policies with regard to their outcomes are even more scarce. We empirically analyse the extent to which variation in employment rates within 26 OECD countries over the period 1990-2010 can be explained by effort on five social investment policies. We additionally explore the role of policy and institutional complementarities. Using time-series cross-section analyses we find robust evidence for a positive association between effort on ALMPs and employment rates. For other policies we obtain mixed results. ALMPs are the only policies for which we observe signs of policy interdependence, which point at diminishing marginal returns. Additionally, our analysis demonstrates that the interdependence of social investment policies varies across welfare state regimes. Together, this indicates that the employment outcomes of social investment policies are also contingent on the broader framework of welfare state policies and institutions.

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Gender and attitudes toward welfare state reform: Are women really social investment promoters?

Journal of European Social Policy ◽

10.1177/0958928720978012 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 095892872097801

Author(s):

Julian L. Garritzmann ◽

Hanna Schwander

Keyword(s):

Demand Side ◽

Social Investment ◽

Investment Policies ◽

State Reform ◽

Career Interruptions ◽

The Social ◽

Analytical Step ◽

Political Realignment ◽

Welfare Politics ◽

Welfare State Reform

This article contributes to the study of the demand side of welfare politics by investigating gender differences in social investment preferences systematically. Building on the different functions of social investment policies in creating, preserving, or mobilizing skills, we argue that women do not support social investment policies generally more strongly than men. Rather, women demand, in particular, policies to preserve their skills during career interruptions and help to mobilize their skills on the labour market. In a second analytical step, we examine women’s policy priorities if skill preservation and mobilization come at the expense of social compensation. We test our arguments for eight Western European countries with data from the INVEDUC survey. The confirmation of our arguments challenges a core assumption of the literatures on the social investment turn and women’s political realignment. We discuss the implication of our findings in the conclusion.

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