This timely analysis of today's economic realities relates the headlines to the long term causes from which they spring. Why did we have a worldwide financial crisis in 2008? Is stimulus the answer, and what are its risks and potential returns? Why are our investments so unprofitable? Why are our citizens struggling to find work? Why do we repeatedly confuse effort with results? The author finds the answers to these questions in the dysfunctions of the welfare state.Economics is the science of the creation and exchange of value, but Gross Domestic Product (GDP) confuses value with the creation and exchange of "goods and services." Along the way, GDP has become a measure not of value created, but of effort expended and of costs incurred. This confusion has become the cornerstone of policy manipulation of "the economy," because it is very easy to incur costs, though not so easy to create value. Policymakers are not eager to correct this discrepancy because it is easier to manufacture costs through brute force than to produce results that have real value.This book pins down the major contributors to these distortions in a number of specific areas, including education, science and engineering, hospitals and other medical facilities, the public utility transmission grids, and in the trade deficit. It also pursues the distortions caused by short-sighted public policy in the capital markets. The book concludes with a discussion of market efficiency and inefficiency leading to the conclusion that policy intervention into the capital markets reduces their capacity to allocate capital productively. The author addresses this broad topic from the unique perspective of someone who has contributed both to the theoretical analysis and to the actual practice of markets.

The authors examine how the USA, Great Britain, France, Sweden and Germany have responded to the increasing challenge of international competition since the mid-1970s. Apart from in Sweden, the pursuit of competitiveness has undermined economic and social citizenship rights, and this has, in Britain and the USA, engendered an assault upon the idea of the welfare state. Solidarity and social discipline will be severely tested if the welfare state is to remain economically and politically viable in a highly competitive modern world.

Welfare states vary across nations and change over time. And the balance between markets and government; free enterprise and social protection is perennially in question. But all developed societies have welfare states of one kind or another - they are a fundamental dimension of modern government. And even after decades of free-market criticism and reform, their core institutions have proven resilient and popular. This Very Short Introduction describes the modern welfare state, explaining its historical and contemporary significance and arguing that far from being 'a failure' or 'a problem', welfare states are an essential element of contemporary capitalism, and a vital concomitant of democratic government. In this accessible and entertaining account, David Garland cuts through the fog of misunderstandings to explain in clear and simple terms, what welfare states are, how they work, and why they matter. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States is the English-language adaptation of one of the most important contributions to welfare economics published in recent years. Professors Leibfried and Leisering offer a time-based (dynamic) analysis of the study of poverty, and suggest the need for a radical re-think of conventional theoretical and policy approaches. The core of this study is the empirical analysis of the life course of recipients of 'Social Assistance' in Germany, although the conclusions are put into a wider context of socio-economic and socio-political analysis and comparative observations are made with other countries, notably the USA. Time, Life and Poverty will be of interest to upper-level students, researchers and policy-makers in a wide range of social science disciplines, including: economics, social policy, sociology, psychology and European studies.

While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare state in the European sense is not simply an administrative arrangement of various measures of social protection but a political project embedded in distinct cultural traditions. Offering the first accessible account in English of the historical development of the European idea of the welfare state, this book reviews the intellectual foundations which underpinned the road towards the European welfare state, formulates some basic concepts for its understanding, and highlights the differences in the underlying structural and philosophical conditions between continental Europe and the English-speaking world.

In a volume consisting of nearly 50 newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state.

The Dynamic Welfare State makes a case for a radical shift in how we view the roles of both public and private institutions in the United States. It documents the emergence of a third stage in the American welfare state, evident in corporations exploiting markets in healthcare, education, and financial services. Architects of the welfare state envisaged government as the provider of essential services to citizens; however, as the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and the Affordable Care Act of 2010 show, corporations and the wealthy have become adept at using trade associations, hiring lobbyists, influencing elections, and contributing to think tanks in order to craft public policy that is congruent with industry preferences. Moreover, the influence of "dark money" through political action committees classified by the IRS as "social welfare organizations" in order to obscure the identity of donors is pernicious to democracy. In addition to accounting for the marketization of public policy, The Dynamic Welfare State describes the failure of health and human services professionals to advance the welfare of the public, graphically illustrated by the poverty trap, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and the "school-to-prison pipeline." The status quo is unsustainable, and a reconfigured welfare state is essential if government social programs are to honor their public commitments for the 21st century. In this bold and timely text, David Stoesz illustrates how and why empowerment, mobility, and innovation are themes for a dynamic welfare state that is congruent with the modern day.

This book demonstrates that political exchange and coalition building have become the key ingredients for continental European pension reform.

How can we intervene in the systemic bureaucratic dysfunction that beleaguers the public sector? De Jong examines the roots of this dysfunction and presents a novel approach to solving it. Drawing from academic literature on bureaucracy and problem solving in the public sector, and the clinical work of the Kafka Brigade—a social enterprise based in the Netherlands dedicated to diagnosing and remedying bureaucratic dysfunction in practice, this study reveals the shortcomings of conventional approaches to bureaucratic reform. The usual methods have failed to diagnose problems, distinguish symptoms, or identify root causes in a comprehensive or satisfactory way. They have also failed to engage clients, professionals, and midlevel managers in understanding and addressing the dysfunction that plagues them. This book offers conceptual frameworks, theoretical insights, and practical lessons for dealing with the problem. It sets a course for rigorous public problem solving to create governments that can be more effective, efficient, equitable, and responsive to social concerns. De Jong argues that successfully remedying bureaucratic dysfunction depends on employing diagnostics capable of distinguishing and dissecting various kinds of dysfunction. The “Anna Karenina principle” applies here: all well functioning bureaucracies are alike; every dysfunctional bureaucracy is dysfunctional in its own way. The author also asserts that the worst dysfunction occurs when multiple organizations share responsibility for a problem, but no single organization is primarily responsible for solving it. This points to a need for creating and reinforcing distributed problem solving capacity focused on deep (cross-)organizational learning and revised accountability structures. Our best approach to dealing with dysfunction may therefore not be top-down regulatory reform, but rather relentless bottom-up and cross-boundary leadership and innovation. Using fourteen clinical cases of bureaucratic dysfunction investigated by the Kafka Brigade, the author demonstrates how a proper process for identifying, defining, diagnosing, and remedying the problem can produce better outcomes.

This book compares workfare policies in the United States and 'active labor policies' in Western Europe that are aimed primarily at the long-term unemployed, unemployed youth, lone parents, immigrants and other vulnerable groups often referred to collectively as the 'socially excluded'. The Europeans maintain that workfare is the best method of bringing the socially excluded back into mainstream society. Although there are differences in terms of ideology and practice, Joel F. Handler argues that there are also significant similarities, especially field-level practices that serve to exclude those who are the least employable or lack other qualifications that agencies favor. The author also examines strategies for reform, including protective labor legislation, the Open Method of Coordination, the reform of social and employment services, and concludes with an argument for a basic income guarantee, which would not only alleviate poverty but also provide clients with an exit option.