Reforming the Welfare State

Reforming the Welfare State PDF Author: Richard B. Freeman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226261913
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, Sweden carried out one of the most ambitious experiments by a capitalist market economy in developing a large and active welfare state. Sweden's generous social programs and the economic equality they fostered became an example for other countries to emulate. Of late, Sweden has also been much discussed as a model of how to deal with financial and economic crisis, due to the country's recovery from a banking crisis in the mid-1990s. At that time economists heatedly debated whether the welfare state caused Sweden's crisis and should be reformed—a debate with clear parallels to current concerns over capitalism. Bringing together leading economists, Reforming the Welfare State examines Sweden's policies in response to the mid-1990s crisis and the implications for the subsequent recovery. Among the issues investigated are the way changes in the labor market, tax and benefit policies, local government policy, industrial structure, and international trade affected Sweden's recovery. The way that Sweden addressed its economic challenges provides valuable insight into the viability of large welfare states, and more broadly, into the way modern economies deal with crisis.

Reforming the Welfare State

Reforming the Welfare State PDF Author: Richard B. Freeman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226261913
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, Sweden carried out one of the most ambitious experiments by a capitalist market economy in developing a large and active welfare state. Sweden's generous social programs and the economic equality they fostered became an example for other countries to emulate. Of late, Sweden has also been much discussed as a model of how to deal with financial and economic crisis, due to the country's recovery from a banking crisis in the mid-1990s. At that time economists heatedly debated whether the welfare state caused Sweden's crisis and should be reformed—a debate with clear parallels to current concerns over capitalism. Bringing together leading economists, Reforming the Welfare State examines Sweden's policies in response to the mid-1990s crisis and the implications for the subsequent recovery. Among the issues investigated are the way changes in the labor market, tax and benefit policies, local government policy, industrial structure, and international trade affected Sweden's recovery. The way that Sweden addressed its economic challenges provides valuable insight into the viability of large welfare states, and more broadly, into the way modern economies deal with crisis.

Sweden and the Revival of the Capitalist Welfare State

Sweden and the Revival of the Capitalist Welfare State PDF Author: Andreas Bergh
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1783473509
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
This book tackles a number of controversial questions regarding Swedenês economic and political development: «¾¾¾¾ How did Sweden become rich? «¾¾¾¾ How did Sweden become egalitarian? «¾¾¾¾ Why has Sweden since the early 1990s grown faster tha

Sweden's Welfare State

Sweden's Welfare State PDF Author: Mr.Subhash Madhav Thakur
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 9781589061583
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Sweden has long been viewed as epitomizing a particular approach to economic and social policy. To its advocates, the Swedish welfare state builds on a strong social consensus favoring extensive state intervention to ensure a high quality of life for all Swedes. To its critics, the Swedish system is marked by excessive government intervention and attendant inefficiencies. These contrasting views are captured in imagery used by Prime Minister Göran Persson: "Think of a bumblebee. With its overly heavy body and little wings, supposedly it should not be able to fly--but it does." The Swedish welfare state is the bumblebee that has managed to fly. This book draws on many years of IMF surveillance and policy advice to explain how it has done so, to assess the challenges that the Swedish model faces in the new century, to propose a strategy for dealing with those challenges, and to draw lessons for the many other countries that face similar challenges from globalization and demographics.

Eugenics and the Welfare State

Eugenics and the Welfare State PDF Author: Gunnar Broberg
Publisher: Uppsala Studies in History of
ISBN: 9780870137587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
In 1997 Eugenics and the Welfare State caused an uproar with international repercussions. This edition contains a new introduction by Broberg and Roll-Hansen, addressing events that occurred following the original publication. The four essays in this book stand as a chilling indictment of mass sterilization practices, not only in Scandinavia but in other European countries and the United States--eugenics practices that remained largely hidden from the public view until recently. Eugenics and the Welfare State also provides an in-depth, critical examination of the history, politics, science, and economics that led to mass sterilization programs in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland; programs put in place for the "betterment of society" and based largely on the "junk science" of eugenics that was popular before the rise of Nazism in Germany. When the results of Broberg's and Roll-Hansen's book were widely publicized in August 1997, the London Observer reported, "Yesterday Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish Minister for Social Policy, issued a belated reaction to the revelations. She said: 'What went on is barbaric and a national disgrace.' She pledged to create a law ensuring that involuntary sterilisation would never again be used in Sweden, and promised compensation to victims." Ultimately, the Swedish government not only apologized to the many thousands who had been sterilized without their knowledge or against their will, but also put in place a program for the payment of reparations to these unfortunate victims.

The Social Programs of Sweden

The Social Programs of Sweden PDF Author: Albert H. Rosenthal
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 145291270X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
The Social Programs of Sweden was first published in 1967. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. In his forward to this book, Marquis Childs, author of the classic work Sweden: The Middle Way,comments: "There has been a great deal of emotional writing about the effort of the labor government in Stockholm to regulate capitalism and provide a decent standard of living for every citizen. Much of this emotional writing has come from those who for one reason or another have sought to discredit the Swedish experiment ... The net result of much of this highly colored writing has been to ignore the real contribution that Sweden has made in a half dozen fields and particularly in the fields of social security and health. But now comes an author ideally equipped to appraise this contribution by reason of his background. This is the great virtue of this book. It is a careful and thorough examination of Sweden's achievement by a specialist familiar with our own social security, public health and welfare systems ... No subsequent appraisal of what Sweden has done can be made henceforth without this basic work." The author traces the development of the Swedish programs and provides detailed descriptions of the social security, health insurance, public health, and welfare programs, with case examples. He evaluates and compares the programs with their American counterparts, and, in conclusion, considers the effects of the Swedish system on personal freedom. The work is based on extensive research done in Sweden.

Social Policy, Welfare State, and Civil Society in Sweden

Social Policy, Welfare State, and Civil Society in Sweden PDF Author: Sven E. O. Hort (Birth Name Olsson)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789198085457
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Social Policy, Welfare State, and Civil Society in Sweden I-II gives a comprehensive account of the global invention of the welfare state, from the far north of the West to the global East and Southeast, and from its social policy origins to the most recent challenges from civil society. This first volume includes four essays, by now minor classics in welfare state literature. "Before Social Democracy: The Early Formation of a Social Policy Discourse in Sweden" set the stage for a research current that shifted from state welfare to welfare mix and civil society. "Working Class Power and the 1946 Pension Reform in Sweden" examined a key thesis in Peter Baldwin's seminal work The Politics of Social Solidarity, and led to a lively polemic among social historians. The third text was first published (as "Sweden") in volume 1 of Peter Flora's magnum opus Growth to Limits: The Western European Welfare States Since World War II. The final essay, "The Dialectics of Decentralization and Privatization," is a path-breaking study of the Swedish welfare state's reconstruction in the 1980s. The second volume covers the period since 1988 - "the lost world of social democracy" - and recent changes in comparative welfare state research and the Nordic Model. This work is an updated and enlarged edition in two volumes of Sven Hort's well-known and wide-ranging dissertation Social Policy and Welfare State in Sweden, published under the author's birth name Sven E. Olsson in 1990. This first volume contains the original four essays of the first edition. In praise of the new edition: "This is an impressive, comprehensive and knowledgeable contribution to the analysis of the early history and long-term development of the Swedish welfare state. Through a prime focus on reform actors at various stages we are persuasively reminded that there was a history before the ascendance of Social Democracy from the early 1930s, that the Social Democrats played a crucial role in the expansionary phase, and that one must go beyond theories of class politics to get a proper understanding of the evolution and characteristics of the modern welfare state." - Stein Kuhnle, Professor in Comparative Politics, Hertie School of Governance and University of Bergen "The development of the Swedish welfare state is often sketched in fairly simplistic terms. Professor Hort's analysis remains the most penetrating of the complex and fascinating interplay between politics, social forces, and economic development that explains much of the intricacies of the system that eventually emerged." - Gunnar Wetterberg, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Sven E. O. Hort is Professor in Social Welfare at the College of Social Sciences, Seoul National University, Korea. He is an alumnus of Lund University. In Sweden he taught sociology at Linneaus and Sodertorn universities. Currently he is the chief editor of the Swedish journal Arkiv. Tidskrift for samhallsanalys and a deputy editor of European Societies. With Stein Kuhnle he is the author of "The Coming of East and South-East Asian Welfare States," Journal of European Social Policy (2000)."

The Quest for a Divided Welfare State

The Quest for a Divided Welfare State PDF Author: John Lapidus
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030247867
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book deals with the quest for a divided welfare state in Sweden. The prime example is the rapid rise of private health insurance, which now constitutes a parallel system characterized by state subsidies for some and not for others. This functions as a kind of reverse means-testing, whereby primarily the upper classes get state support for new types of welfare consumption. Innovatively, Lapidus explains how such a parallel system requires not only direct and statutory state support but also indirect support, for example, from infrastructure built for the public health system. He goes on to examine how semi-private welfare funding is dependent on private provision and how the so-called 'hidden welfare state' gradually erodes the visible and former universal welfare state model, in direct contrast to its own stated goals. Who benefits from privatized welfare? How are the privatization of delivery and the privatization of funding linked? How does this impact public willingness to pay tax? All of these questions and more are discussed in this accessible volume.

The Growth of Scandinavian Law

The Growth of Scandinavian Law PDF Author: Lester B. Orfield
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 1584771801
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
A study in comparative law that examines the legal systems of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden and the forces that influenced their development. According to Orfield, the Scandinavian states are a useful area for study as unique examples of law based largely on custom and usage that owe little to Anglo-American or Continental models.

Migration and Social Protection in Europe and Beyond (Volume 1)

Migration and Social Protection in Europe and Beyond (Volume 1) PDF Author: Jean-Michel Lafleur
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303051241X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
This first open access book in a series of three volumes provides an in-depth analysis of social protection policies that EU Member States make accessible to resident nationals, non-resident nationals and non-national residents. In doing so, it discusses different scenarios in which the interplay between nationality and residence could lead to inequalities of access to welfare. Each chapter maps the eligibility conditions for accessing social benefits, by paying particular attention to the social entitlements that migrants can claim in host countries and/or export from home countries. The book also identifies and compares recent trends of access to welfare entitlements across five policy areas: health care, unemployment, family benefits, pensions, and guaranteed minimum resources. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, policy makers, government employees and NGO’s.

The Changing Meanings of the Welfare State

The Changing Meanings of the Welfare State PDF Author: Nils Edling
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178920125X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
In discussions of economics, governance, and society in the Nordic countries, “the welfare state” is a well-worn analytical concept. However, there has been much less scholarly energy devoted to historicizing this idea beyond its postwar emergence. In this volume, specialists from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland chronicle the historical trajectory of “the welfare state,” tracing the variable ways in which it has been interpreted, valued, and challenged over time. Each case study generates valuable historical insights into not only the history of Northern Europe, but also the welfare state itself as both a phenomenon and a concept.