Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century

by Peter H. Lindert

• ISBN13: 9780521529174
• ISBN10: 0521529174
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, but only recently are we able to see the total picture of the evolution of social spending. This book examines the question of whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Peter Lindert argues that, contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology of many politicians, social spending has contributed to, rather than inhibited, economic growth. Also Available...Growing Public, Volume 1: The Story

Table of Contents

The Underlying Framework

A minimal theory of social transfers

A guide to the tests

Accounting for Social Spending, Jobs and Growth

Explaining the rise of mass public schooling

Explaining the rise of social transfers

What drove postwar social spending?

Social transfers hardly affected growth

Reconciling unemployment and growth in the OECD

Appendices

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.