Politics of Risk-taking : Welfare State Reform in Advanced Democracies

Vis, Barbara

doi:10.5117/9789089642271

Cited by 94 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 148 publications

(252 reference statements)

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“…With respect to studies focusing on partisanship, our model shows that the government's color is irrelevant, as both leftist and rightist politicians face a median voter who opposes welfare program reform. The empirical work of, for instance, Vis (2010) corroborates this prediction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

“…When are they willing to accept the electoral risk involved? These questions have arrived at the forefront of the comparative literature on the welfare state (see e.g., Starke 2006;Vis 2010), but are not answered satisfactorily yet. Most studies simply assume that when governments get the chance to reform, for instance because the institutions allow it, they will do so.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This implication is consistent with the work of, for instance, Høj et al (2006). Focusing on 21 OECD-countries between 1975 and 2003, Høj and colleagues find that economic crises, operationalized as output gaps larger than four per cent, are associated with more reform in both the labor market and the product market (see also Pitlik and Wirth 2003;Vis 2010).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voters’ commitment problem and reforms in welfare programs

Hollanders

Vis

2011

Public Choice

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When will a vote-seeking government pursue unpopular welfare reforms that are likely to cost it votes? Using a game-theoretical model, we show that a government enacts reforms that are unpopular with the median voter during bad economic times, but not during good ones. The key reason is that voters cannot commit to re-elect a government that does not reform during bad times. This voters' commitment problem stems from economic voting, i.e., voters' tendency to punish the government for a poorly performing economy. The voter commitment problem provides an explanation for the empirical puzzle that governments sometimes enact reforms that voters oppose.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voters’ commitment problem and reforms in welfare programs

Hollanders

Vis

2011

Public Choice

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“…Nevertheless, not all programs should elicit the same level of support. ALMPs, given their "less demanding nature" (Vis, 2010), should elicit more funding, in particular from coalition governments.…”

Section: Preferences For Employment Insurance Reformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active or Passive? Reforming Employment Benefits in the OECD

Alemon

2012

RES

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The last three decades witnessed attempts to reduce employment benefits in many OECD countries. This study distinguishes between three types of benefits: employment protection legislation (EPL), active labour market policies (ALMPs), and unemployment compensation. Using structural equation modeling, the study systematically examines the determinants of these benefits in 23 countries (1985 to 2008). The analysis contributes to the welfare state literature in at least three ways. First, it goes beyond studies of individual programs or overall "welfare effort" by examining three programs simultaneously. Second, it uncovers both direct and indirect channels of support for these programs. Finally, the analysis reveals, contrary to previous findings, that strict employment protection is quite compatible with more spending on ALMPs and unemployment compensation in some countries.

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“…Findings similar to Trickey's have been reported by Kananen [43] on the recent development of employment policies in Nordic countries. From the macro perspective, Vis [44] employed fuzzy-set ideal type analysis on 16 countries covering 1985 to 2002, finding that Denmark is the only country that changed radically towards a workfare regime, while the radical shifts in New Zealand and Ireland were towards a "liberal welfare" regime.…”

Section: Economic Globalization and Workfarismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Economic Globalization on the Employment Policies in 19 Western Democracies from 1985 to 2010. Limited Change or Radical Shift towards Workfare?

Naatanen

2015

Social Sciences

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Among the most significant issues facing welfare states are the implications of economic globalization for employment policies. This issue is confronted from the viewpoint of workfarism, the incentives created by social policies for increasing participation in the labor market. To measure the limited changes involved, the analytical framework also includes institutional stickiness, pointing to the capability of welfare state institutions to resist external pressures. Panel data on capital flow, an active labor market policy (ALMP), and unemployment benefit (UB) expenditures in 19 welfare states between 1985 and 2010 are drawn from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the KOF Index of Globalization (KOF). The Vector Autoregressive Moving-Average model with exogenous regressors (VARMAX)-regression analysis found institutional stickiness to be a more significant factor than capital flow in 61% of the observations. The impact of capital flow was particularly significant in the United Kingdom, and in northern and continental Europe, and a tendency toward workfarism was detected in 37% of the welfare states. From a comparative perspective, the impact via the increased capital flow to workfare-related policies is a matter of contrasts rather than a unilateral phenomenon.

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Politics of Risk-taking : Welfare State Reform in Advanced Democracies

Cited by 94 publications

References 148 publications

Voters’ commitment problem and reforms in welfare programs

Voters’ commitment problem and reforms in welfare programs

Active or Passive? Reforming Employment Benefits in the OECD

The Impact of Economic Globalization on the Employment Policies in 19 Western Democracies from 1985 to 2010. Limited Change or Radical Shift towards Workfare?

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