Expansion and retrenchment of the Swedish welfare state: a longterm approach

pp. 226-245In this paper we will undertake a long-term analysis of the evolution of the Swedish welfare state, seeking to explain that evolution through the use of a systemic approach. That is to say, our approach will consider the interrelations between economic growth (EG), the socio-political institutional framework (IF), and the welfare state (WS) − understood as a set of institutions embracing the labour market and its regulation, the tax system, and the socalled social wage − in order to find the main variables that elucidate its evolution. We will show that the expansive phase of the Swedish welfare state can be explained by the symbiotic relationships developed in the WS-EG-IF interaction; whereas the period of welfare state retrenchment is one result of changes operating within the socio-political (IF) and economic (EG) bases.S

Dualization and subjective employment insecurity: Explaining the subjective employment insecurity divide between permanent and temporary workers across 23 European countries

Dualization theory posits that certain institutions cause dualization in the labour market, yet how institutions deepen the subjective insecurity divide between insiders and outsiders has not been examined. This paper examines this question using data from 23 European countries in 2008/9. Results show that the subjective employment insecurity divide between permanent and temporary workers varies significantly across different countries. Corporatist countries, with stronger unions, have larger subjective insecurity divides between permanent and temporary workers. However, this is because permanent workers feel more secure in these countries rather than because temporary workers are more exposed to feelings of insecurity

Employment Expectations and Gross Flows by Type of Work Contract

There is growing interest in understanding firms’ temporary and permanent employment practices and how institutional changes shape them. Using data on Spanish establishments, we examine: (a) how employers adjust temporary and permanent job and worker flows to prior employment expectations, and (b) how the 1994 and 1997 labour reforms promoting permanent employment affected establishments’ employment practices. Generally, establishments’ prior employment expectations are realized through changes in all job and worker flows. However, establishments uniquely rely on temporary hires as a buffer to confront diminishing long-run employment expectations. None of the reforms significantly affected establishments’ net temporary or permanent employment flows.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40032/3/wp646.pd

It is Hobbes, not Rousseau:an experiment on voting and redistribution

We perform an experiment which provides a laboratory replica of some important features of the welfare state. In the experiment, all individuals in a group decide whether to make a costly effort, which produces a random (independent) outcome for each one of them. The group members then vote on whether to redistribute the resulting and commonly known total sum of earnings equally amongst themselves. This game has two equilibria, if played once. In one of them, all players make effort and there is little redistribution. In the other one, there is no effort and nothingWe thank Iris Bohnet, Tim Cason, David Cooper, John Duffy, Maia Guell, John Van Huyck and Robin Mason for helpful conversations and encouragement. The comments of the Editor and two referees helped improve the paper. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation under grants CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 CSD2006-0016 (all authors), ECO2009-10531 (Cabrales), ECO2008-01768 (Nagel) and the Comunidad de Madrid under grant Excelecon (Cabrales), the Generalitat de Catalunya and the CREA program (Nagel), and project SEJ2007-64340 of Spain’s Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Rodríguez Mora).Publicad

COVID-19 with stigma: Theory and evidence from mobility data

This study conducts both theoretical and empirical analyses of how the non-legally-binding policies originating from COVID-19 affect people's going-out behavior. The theoretical analysis assumes that under a declared state of emergency, the individual going out suffers psychological costs arising from both the risk of infection and the stigma of going out. Our hypothesis is derived that under a declared state of emergency, going out entails a strong psychological cost, and people refrain from going out. Then, this study estimates the model using regional mobility data and emergency declarations data to analyze self-restraint behavior under a non-legally binding emergency declaration. The results show that, compared with the pre-declaration of the state of emergency, going-out behavior under and after lifting of the state of emergency was suppressed even when the going-out behavior did not result in penalties, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis