Developing countries, in particular the least developed ones, probably have more to learn from social policies in Europe during the early 20th century than from the elaborate welfare-state arrangements after World War II. In addition to macro­economic growth and stability, the main ambitions...

What were the asserted complementarities between the welfare state and full-employment policies, and why do these complementarities look less convincing today?

How do we explain the poor employment performance in Western Europe since about the-1970s? This question is in fact twofold : What initiated the dramatic rise in employment, and waht mechanisms have made it continue for so long? My attemps to answer these questions from the basis for a...

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This paper analyzes the interplay between economic incentives and social norms in a public finance context. We assume that to live off one's own work is a social norm, and that the larger the population fraction adhering to this norm, the more intensely it is felt by the individual. It is shown...

This paper deals with economic incentives and welfare-state arrangements in OECD countries. This paper emphasises what may be called "dynamic" incentive issues, i.e. incentive effects that envolve over time. The discussion also covers the interplay between incentives and social norms among...

The modern welfare state and full-employment policies have common intellectual roots. In the 1930s and 1940s, Keynesian visions of full employment and Beveridge-inspired ideas of a universal welfare state grew up in about the same intellectual environment. Both ideas emphasized a government’s...