Can We All Be Denmark? Re-evaluating the Role of Culture as a Determinant of Welfare State Reforms

Past research has demonstrated the economic effectiveness of welfare state reforms that broadly follow the Danish flexicurity model, defined as the combination of highly flexible labor market policies and generous protection schemes for individuals that become unemployed. Notwithstanding, it has also been argued that the institutional viability of this model rests on very specific cultural characteristics, such as the prevalence of high overall levels of social trust. Furthermore, large and generous welfare states might erode civic attitudes over time, defined here as people's willingness to cheat on taxes, transfers, or practice free-riding. Combining data from all available waves of the World Values Survey and the European Values Study with a self-constructed flexicurity index, this paper finds no support for either claim in a sample of OECD and EU countries