Equity, Efficiency and Growth

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-10

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2. PROBLEMS OF THE WELFARE STATE

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

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   2. What is the Domain of the Welfare State?

      • Dennis J. Snower

      Pages 13-40

   3. On the Damaging Side Effects of the Welfare System: How, Why and What to Do

      • Edmund S. Phelps

      Pages 41-56

3. ACTIVE LABOUR POLICIES AND THE WELFARE STATE

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 57-57

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   2. Subsidising Employment Rather than Unemployment

      • Richard Layard

      Pages 59-71

   3. The Labour Market, the Welfare State and European Convergence

      • Renato Brunetta, Leonello Tronti, Renzo Turatto

      Pages 73-101

   4. Economic Effects of Work Sharing in a Dynamic Labour Turnover Model

      • Hian Teck Hoon

      Pages 103-123

4. ECONOMIC POLICIES AND THE WELFARE STATE

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 125-125

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   2. Unemployment, Competitiveness and the Welfare State

      • Robert Mundell

      Pages 127-192

   3. Labour Market Regulation in Italy, Employment and Welfare

      • Gianandrea Goisis, Donatella Porrini

      Pages 193-211

   4. On a Recent Change in the Notion of Incomes Policy

      • Giovanni Caravale

      Pages 213-221

   5. Welfare Spending and Employment Subsidies

      • Carlo Dell’Aringa

      Pages 223-233

5. EQUITY AND EFFICIENCY

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 235-235

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   2. Is the European Welfare State Unsustainable?

      • Edmond Malinvaud

      Pages 237-256

   3. Distributive Equity and Economic Efficiency: Trade-off and Synergy

      • Mario Baldassarri, Gustavo Piga

      Pages 257-275

   4. Economic Growth, Poverty and Government. Income Support Programmes with Applications to Australia

      • Nanak Kakwani, Gustavo Piga

      Pages 277-325

6. COMPETITIVENESS AND THE WELFARE STATE

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 327-327

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   2. Welfare State: Leaner or Starved? Competitiveness and Social Cohesion

      • Jean-Paul Fitoussi

      Pages 329-342

   3. Deregulation, Welfare State and Competition in the Goods and Labor Markets

      • Francesco Forte, Fabio Padovano

      Pages 343-369

In the post-war period, spending on social security, health and education has grown continuously in the leading industrialized countries. The considerable size of this spending as a percentage of GDP together with the ageing population raise doubts on the sustainability of welfare spending. These doubts have been accompanied in recent years by an increasing awareness of the allocational inefficiencies and the distributive inequalities caused by the provision of some social services. The welfare state should therefore be reconstructed not only through readjustment of the social security system but also a change in unemployment benefits and the taxation of workers to avoid the perverse spiral that may be produced in the future by cuts in welfare benefits, growing unemployment and the need to further reduce the social security services.

• aging
• competition
• economic growth
• economic policy
• efficiency
• employment
• labor market
• labor markets
• poverty
• service
• social security
• taxation
• unemployment
• welfare
• Welfare State

• University ‘La Sapienza’, Rome, Italy

  Mario Baldassarri

• University ‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, Italy

  Luigi Paganetto

• Columbia University, New York, USA

  Edmund S. Phelps

Policies and ethics