NAKE December 1999
These lectures will deal with the economics of social transfers, covering current critiques as well as older views of the more positive functions of the welfare state. They will take as case studies unemployment benefit and retirement pensions, and their effects on the labour and capital markets, respectively. There are likely therefore to be complementarities with the other lecture series.
The lectures will draw particularly on my recent book The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State, MIT Press, 1999, referred to below as ECRBWS, but I have tried to balance this with readings from authors taking different approaches.
1. Economists and the Welfare State
(a) ECRBWS, Chapter 1.
(b) A B Atkinson, "The Economics of the Welfare State: An Incomplete Debate", European Economy, 1997, No 4.
(c) A Lindbeck, "Welfare state dynamics", European Economy, 1997, No 4, or A Lindbeck, "Hazardous Welfare-state Dynamics", American Economic Review, 1995, Papers and Proceedings, vol 85: 9-15.
(d) R Freeman, "The Large Welfare State as a System", American Economic Review, 1995, Papers and Proceedings, vol 85: 16-21.
2. Unemployment Benefit and the Labour Market
(a) ECRBWS, Chapters 3 and 4.
(b) S P Millard and D T Mortensen, "The unemployment and welfare effects of labour market policy: a comparison of the USA and the UK" in D J Snower and G de la Dehesa, editors, Unemployment Policy, Cambridge University Press, 545-571.
(c) D T Coe and D Snower, "Policy Complementarities", IMF Staff Papers, 1997, vol 44: 1-35.
3. Savings, Pensions and Growth
(a) ECRBWS, Chapters 6 and 7.
(b) F G Castles and S Dowrick, "The impact of government spending levels on medium-term economic growth in the OECD, 1960-85", Journal of Theoretical Politics, 1990, vol 2: 173-204.
(c) M S Feldstein, "Fiscal policies, capital formation, and capitalism", European Economic Review, 1995, vol 39: 399-420.
4. Empirical Evidence
(a) ECRBWS, Chapter 2.
(b) A B Atkinson and J.Micklewright, "Unemployment compensation and labour market transitions: a critical review", in Journal of Economic Literature, 1991, vol 29: 1679-1727.
(c) S J Nickell, "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America", Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1997, vol 11: 55-74.
(d) J Gruber and D A Wise, "Social Security and Retirement: An International Comparison", American Economic Review, 1998, Papers and Proceedings, vol 88: 158-163.
5. Balancing Costs and Benefits
(a) N Barr, "Economic theory and the Welfare State: A survey and interpretation", Journal of Economic Literature, 1992, vol 30: 741-803.
(b) M S Feldstein, "The Optimal Level of Social Security Benefits", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1985, vol 100: 303-320.
(c) D J Snower, "The Future of the Welfare State", Economic Journal, vol 103: 700-717.
(d) A B Atkinson, "The Welfare State, Budgetary Pressure and Labour Market Shifts", unpublished.