The Welfare State as Piggy Bank
Information, Risk, Uncertainty, and the Role of the State
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 10 May 2001
- ISBN 9780199246595
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages316 pages
- Size 243x165x22 mm
- Weight 580 g
- Language English
- Illustrations numerous tables and figures 0
Categories
Short description:
This book is about economics and its application to the welfare state. Its core argument is that the welfare state exists for reasons additional to poverty relief, reasons arising out of pervasive problems of imperfect information, risk, and uncertainty. Barr focuses on the efficiency argument, indicating that the welfare state is here to stay, and discusses the ways in which it can and will adapt to economic and social change.
MoreLong description:
Of the many functions of the welfare state, two are particularly prominent: the 'Robin Hood' function - the provision of poverty relief, the redistribution of income and wealth, and the reduction of social exclusion; and the 'piggy bank' function - ensuring mechanisms for insurance and for redistribution over the life cycle. The piggy-bank function, unlike the redistributive purpose of the welfare state, has received relatively little attention, and is not widely understood. This book redresses the balance. Nicholas Barr's central contention is that---contrary to popular opinion---the welfare state exists for reasons additional to poverty relief. These reasons - encapsulated by the piggy-bank function - arise out of pervasive problems of imperfect information, risk, and uncertainty. Even if all poverty and social exclusion could be eradicated, people would still need to insure themselves and to redistribute over the life cycle. As a result, Barr argues, the welfare state is here to stay, since twenty-first century developments do nothing to undermine these reasons. He also explores ways in which the welfare state can and will adapt to economic and social change, including specific, and sometimes novel, solutions.
The analysis in "The Welfare State as Piggy Bank" is international, applying to advanced industrial countries, as well as addressing post-communist countries, and touching upon middle-income developing countries. Barr's approach is contemporary and forward-thinking. His discussion ranges over a number of topics of central relevance to life in the twenty-first century, including genetic screening and its impact on insurance; the convergence of private and social insurance; how to finance long-term care; pension reform in the light of fluid family structures and a mobile workforce; loans for financing investment in human capital; and new ways of involving private finance in tertiary education.
Presents a cogently argued account of the principles underlying Welfare State policies and their practical consequences ... I have not seen the economic and public policy distinction between compulsory and post-compulsory education set out so clearly and convincingly before.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part 1 Economic theory
Theory
Part 2 Insurance
The mirage of private unemployment insurance
Problems with medical insurance
Twenty-first century insurance issues
Part 3 Pensions
The economics of pensions
Misleading guides to pension design
Pension design: the options
Twenty-first century pensions issues
Part 4 Education
Core issues in the economics of education
Information problems
Designing student loans
Financing higher education: the options
Twenty-first century education issues
Part 5 The welfare state in a changing world
The welfare state in post-communist countries
The welfare state in a changing world
