Alternatives for Welfare Policy: Coping with Internationalisation and Demographic Change

by Edited by Torben M. Andersen , Per Molander

• ISBN13: 9780521047197
• ISBN10: 0521047196
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Demographic change and increasingly international markets are putting severe pressure on developed welfare states in the OECD countries. The contributors to this book assess the magnitude of these challenges and discuss in depth, and in concrete terms, what policy options are open to meet them. Looking at public service production, social insurance, tax policy and debt policy, they examine the main costs and benefits associated with an extensive welfare state and ask whether the same objectives can be reached with a welfare regime that is less costly. They also discuss whether the organization of the welfare state is capable of meeting future challenges facing a changing society. This rigorous analysis draws on empirical material from OECD countries with a focus on the Scandinavian countries.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Preface

Introduction

International integration and the welfare state

The changing age structure and the public sector

Emigration from the Scandinavian welfare states

Productivity and costs in public production of services

Use of fees in the provision of public services in OECD countries

Privatisation of social insurance with reference to Sweden

Occupational welfare

Pathways to retirement and retirement incentives in Sweden

Social insurance and redistribution

Assessing the effect of introducing welfare accounts in Sweden

Taxation in a global economy

Taxation and education investment in the tertiary sector

Debt strategies for Sweden and Europe

Policy options for reforming the welfare state Torben

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.