The implementation of social policies is often hampered by the fact that local decision-makers may be unwilling or unable to implement the policy as intended by the central government. In contrast to research that focuses on incentivizing and holding local decision makers accountable, we examine...

This article argues that the socio-ecological transformation does not only require to restructure the traditional welfare state architecture but also to renew welfare state objectives and institutions. While compensatory and preventive functions have long been in the foreground, it is now time...

This paper examines how the necessary socio-ecological transformation can be shaped through welfare state institutions and measures in such a way that it does not cause social tensions and avoids any new environmentally harmful maladjustments, but rather is as socially just and ecologically...

Housing prices are rising faster than incomes in many areas of the world, reducing wellbeing and engendering social discontent. Passivity by municipal and national governments is no longer an option. In this essay, I will describe the tradeoffs between different housing policy objectives of...

Children of single mothers face higher rates of poverty than children in two-parent households in practically every affluent democracy. While this difference is widely acknowledged, there is little consensus regarding the causes of their poverty and, as a result, little consensus on the best way...

In order to achieve universal health coverage, the full involvement of informal-sector workers in healthinsurance schemes is necessary. In Tanzania, measures targeting informal-sector workers have been evolving over time. Earlier researchers reported low participation of such workers in the...

We study how fathers' time impacts children's human capital using the introduction of earmarked paternity leave in Sweden. We use administrative data on parents' leave uptake and children's educational outcomes in a difference-in-discontinuities design, exploiting the plausibly random timing of...

This paper is part of a comparative project on the Varieties of Covid-19 Reactions and Changing Modes of Globalization in the Global South. The project employs a comparative analysis of two industries-automobiles and clothing/textiles-across four countries in order to analyze the impacts of the...

Activation is an efficacious policy paradigm in modern welfare states. Taking the case of Germany, we study the relationship between the embeddedness of benefit recipients in activating labor market institutions and individual labor supply. Using panel data, we estimate the effects of...

This article investigates how mothers’ and fathers’ daily time use changed across social classes from 1990 to 2013 in Germany. In the 2000s, Germany’s adherence to the male breadwinner model was eroded by labor and family policy reforms typical of the adult worker model, which assumes...

This paper studies the long-term impact of a paid parental leave reform in former East Germany in 1986 on maternal physical and mental health and subjective well-being. The reform extended paid leave for first-time mothers by six months to a maximum of twelve months. I use representative survey...

This study explores the European Union's role in Europe's housing crisis. While much attention has been given to the EU's impact on other welfare state sectors, housing remains underexplored. Using Aalbers' theory of housing financialisation and Scharpf's theory of positive and negative EU...

This paper examines the evolution and challenges of Kosovo's pension system. Since its inception, a basic pension and mandatory individual accounts have formed the key element of Kosovo's pension system. Over the years, the pension system has expanded to include a variety of merit pensions,...

This working paper is a tentative, solutions-oriented response to concerns that pensions would not work without economic growth. It aims to concretize post-growth visions, but also validate post-growth thinking to those who consider it too far outside the mainstream. To the contrary, this...

Cash benefit programmes have increasingly emphasised conditionality and "demanding" forms of activation in recent decades. Behavioural requirements are now a key element in reforms of unemployment benefits (UB) and related out-of-work benefits in high-income OECD countries, and they are the...

Das Working Paper zeigt anhand von zwei Fallbeispielen, wie die sogenannte Neue Rechte linke und sozialpolitische Ansätze rezipiert: Die selektive und rhetorische Übernahme einiger solcher Ideen dient der Provokation, der Reduktion von Angriffsflächen und der scheinbaren Bearbeitung der...

Reducing poverty and improving the living standards of the poor and vulnerable populations in Sri Lanka have been one of the country's key goals. The government has designed poverty-targeting programs with relevant government agencies working to support low-income families. The programs include...