Public social welfare expenditures, fiscal years 1965-87

The years from 1965 to 1976 were a period of great expansion in social welfare expenditures under public law. The entry of the Federal Government into the fields of health care and education was responsible for much of the growth in the first part of this period; high inflation produced increased spending in the later years. From 1977 to 1987, the rate of growth in social welfare spending slowed considerably. In fact, since 1983 the dominant characteristic of such expenditures has been their stability. Although the amount of money spent was higher in each year, little change occurred in the relative size or the apportionment of the funds. The 1987 expenditures continued this pattern. The total amount spent, $834.4 billion, represented an increase of 6.6 percent over the previous year. This amount equaled 18.8 percent of the gross national product. In constant dollar terms, the increase from 1986 to 1987 was 1.7 percent. The Federal Government provided 60-62 percent of all social welfare funding from 1980 to 1986. In 1987, this share fell slightly--to 59.9 percent. The programs for social insurance, public aid, veterans, and housing were primarily Federally funded, while education was largely a State and local responsibility. Governments at all levels spent 53.4 percent of their funds for social insurance purposes in 1987, slightly more than in 1986. However, the experience at different levels of government varied considerably. Federal spending increased 2 percent as a percent of all Federal expenditures, while State and local spending decreased about 1 percent.     

Private social welfare expenditures, 1972-85

This article updates the private social welfare expenditures series with complete data for 1985 and information for most categories through 1986. In the United States, private sector expenditures play a substantial role in the provision of social welfare services. This article presents private social welfare expenditures in terms of the four major categories--health, education, welfare and related services, and income maintenance that includes private pensions, sickness and disability benefits, and group insurance. The private expenditures, which totaled $429.3 billion in 1985, are distributed by major category beginning in 1972 and are also related to public social welfare expenditures and gross national product.     

Globalization, welfare regimes and social protection expenditures in Western and Eastern European countries

This paper analyzes the effects of globalization on social protection expenditures in European countries. The particular focus is on (a) the Eastern European countries and (b) on differences in globalization effects between welfare regimes. We find evidence in favor of the compensation hypothesis in Western Europe which is driven by the conservative welfare regime, outweighing the efficiency effect of globalization in the social-democratic welfare regime. In Eastern European countries the efficiency effect is predominant. No globalization effect is found for the liberal and the southern welfare regimes.     

Public expenditures in Canadian provinces: An empirical study of politico-economic interactions

It is widely believed that government ideology and electoral constraints are two major factors that influence the level of public expenditures. However, Frey and Schneider argue that the effects of the two phenomena are not simultaneous. Only when a government is popular can it pursue ideological goals, and when popularity is low, energies must be redirected toward gaining support from voters to win the next election. Data draw from the Canadian provincial case are used to test empirically this hypothesis. The findings support the Frey and Schneider explanation.     

Initiatives and government expenditures

This paper demonstrates that provisions for initiatives have important effects on government spending. Provisions for initiatives encourage legislatures to approve any proposal which might attract substantial popular support. If these proposals are more likely to advocate increases than reductions in expenditures, the presence of initiative provisions will increase total expenditures. Direct government expenditures per capita are significantly higher in both states and municipalities which permit initiatives.The Project in State and Local Government Finance of the National Bureau of Economic Research supported the research presented in this paper. Only I am responsible for the content.     

Public opinion about social assistance in Sweden

Abstract. When studying public opinion about income-tested programmes, it is important to distinguish between expenditures and parameters regulating supply of social assistance. We suggest that the latter might be the most interesting. Using data from a survey study over a Swedish sample, we investigate public opinion about income thresholds in Swedish welfare programmes. The results show the public as being in favour of rather higher income thresholds, as compared to that decided by the politicians. We found that public opinion is more homogeneous concerning the income needs of adults than those of children. Although data on several background characteristics were available, we had difficulties in relating the answers to systematic factors of the individuals in the sample. Thus, we conclude that the Swedish population is rather homogeneous in their opinions about income thresholds in welfare programmes.     

Beyond acceptable risk: On the social acceptability of technologies

The social acceptability of large-scale technologies depends upon a wide range of things, some related to safety and economics, but also some factors of cultural, social and psychological significance. However, many risk analysts assume that public opposition to technologies is mostly due to unfounded fears of their risks and, that there can exist quantitative criteria of acceptable risk that could allow the acceptability of technologies to be judged. This paper traces the emergence of the acceptable risk problem formulation and reviews critically some of the approaches that have been put forward to solve it. It concludes by discussing the problem of acceptable technology returned to its wider political and cultural context.Paper written in the framework of a collaboration with the FAST Programme (Forecasting and Assessment in the Field of Science and Technology) of the Commission of the European Communities. We wish to thank Donald Bain, Ward Edwards, Howard Kunreuther, John Lathrop, Riccardo Petrella and Jerry Ravetz for their comments. Any opinions expressed or values revealed are solely those of the authors.     

Social mobility and the demand for public consumption expenditures

The collective choice of public consumption expenditure is reconsidered when voters are socially mobile. In accordance with previous work on social mobility and political economics, the analysis concerns a class of mobility processes that induce mappings from initial income to expected future income that are monotonically increasing and concave. The paper abstracts from the explicitly redistributive role of government and concentrates on public consumption which is modeled as a classical public good. In equilibrium, provision is sensitive to the degree of social mobility, theoretically linking social mobility to public consumption. Further, empirical puzzles about the impact of voting franchise extensions on the growth of government spending are addressed within the context of social mobility.