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The challenge of how to ensure that working families see their living standards improve over time is central in rich countries. Many argue that conditions are stagnating for many, driving political polarization and threatening social stability. Generating Prosperity for Working Families in Affluent Countries investigates how common such a "squeeze" on middle-income earners has actually been, and what forces underlie it in terms of globalization, technology, and government policies. Generating Prosperity for Working Families in Affluent Countries presents the findings of a comprehensive analysis of performance in improving living standards across the wealthy nations of the OECD. It relates performance to overall economic growth, exploring why these often diverge substantially, and to the different models of capitalism or economic growth embedded in each country. Going beyond income, other indicators and aspects of living standards are also incorporated including non-monetary indicators of deprivation and financial strain, wealth and its distribution, and intergenerational mobility. Through looking across this broad canvas, this book teases out how ordinary households have fared in recent decades in these critically important respects, and how that should inform the quest for inclusive growth and prosperity.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach this book provides a cutting-edge, in-depth account of social policy research today, how we got here, and where future research should be headed. It defines the core research agenda for the future covering multiple social policy fields, including care, family, health, and housing policy as well as gender equality, labour market policy, and welfare attitudes.
Rising inequality in income and wealth across the OECD has been widely recognised and identified as a major concern; Inequality and Inclusive Growth in Rich Countries links this phenomenon with stagnation in wages and incomes for ordinary working households in order to address the challenge of promoting growth and prosperity. The concentration of wealth at the top of society is now seen as a threat to social and political stability. Inequality and Inclusive Growth in Rich Countries aims to identify what structures and policies are associated with success or failure in limiting the rise in inequality and promoting income growth for those in the middle and lower reaches of the income distribution. It analyses the varying experiences of ten rich countries over recent decades in depth, revealing that there are indeed responses that governments and societies can adopt, and that stagnation and rising inequality do not have to be accepted, but can be combatted given the political will and capacity.
Research on Economic Inequality's 28th volume provides original research on how inequality is affected by redistribution, growth, mobility and educational opportunities. Additional papers discuss poverty, welfare and wage discrimination.
Interest in democratic socialism is on the rise, but this wide-ranging comparison of two systems shows that the Nordic model of capitalism achieves virtually everything that contemporary democratic socialists say we should want. Socialism is back in the conversation, and recent polls suggest the share of young Americans who have a favorable impression of socialism is about the same as the share that have a favorable view of capitalism. The case for a modern democratic socialism is that capitalism is bad, or at least not very good, and that socialism would be an improvement. To fully and fairly assess democratic socialism's desirability, Lane Kenworthy argues in Would Democratic Socialism Be Better?, we need to compare it to the best version of capitalism that humans have devised: social democratic capitalism. Kenworthy offers a close look at the evidence about how capitalist economies have performed on an array of outcomes. He finds that social democratic capitalism achieves virtually everything that contemporary democratic socialists say we should want.
The notion that every person living amidst the relative affluence of the rich world has a right to a minimum income enabling social participation, be it frugally and soberly, holds as a fundamental matter of social justice to most people. But how can we make sure that every person has a decent minimum income allowing for a life with dignity in societies rich enough to afford such a right? How can we ensure that minimum income support is cost-effective and compatible with other goals such as promoting work effort, self-reliance, and upward mobility? How can political support for such schemes be fostered and made robust? Zero Poverty Society assesses the current state of minimum income protection in the rich world, building on original empirical analysis. It also engages with debates on topics as diverse as optimal targeting and means-testing, administrative complexity, non-take-up, behavioural economics, the political economy of minimum income protection, and basic income. Marchal and Marx conclude that more adequate poverty prevention is possible, without the costs having to be prohibitive. However, they are sceptical about 'silver-bullet' solutions such as basic income. Adequate minimum income protection is not a matter of getting one scheme or policy right. It is a matter of getting multiple policy levers right, in the right configuration. Incremental, context-conscious expansion is the way forward if we really care about the most vulnerable.
This book aims to answer a number of important questions. To what extent have European countries converged or diverged with EU-wide economic and social indicators over the past 20 years? What have been the drivers of convergence? Why do some countries lag behind, while others experience continuous upward convergence? Why are these trajectories not always linear? Particular attention is paid to the role of institutions, actors and industrial relations – focusing on the resources and strategies of governments, employers and trade unions – in nudging EU countries onto an upward convergence path.
Recent elections in the advanced western democracies have undermined the basic foundations of political systems that had previously beaten back all challenges -- from both the left and the right. The election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, only months after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, signaled a dramatic shift in the politics of the rich democracies. In Anti-System Politics, Jonathan Hopkin traces the evolution of this shift and argues that it is a long-term result of abandoning the post-war model of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s. That shift entailed weakening the democratic process in favor of an opaque, technocratic form of governance that allows voters little opportunity to influence policy. With the financial crisis of the late 2000s these arrangements became unsustainable, as incumbent politicians were unable to provide solutions to economic hardship. Electorates demanded change, and it had to come from outside the system. Using a comparative approach, Hopkin explains why different kinds of anti-system politics emerge in different countries and how political and economic factors impact the degree of electoral instability that emerges. Finally, he discusses the implications of these changes, arguing that the only way for mainstream political forces to survive is for them to embrace a more activist role for government in protecting societies from economic turbulence. A historically-grounded analysis of arguably the most important global political phenomenon at present, Anti-System Politics illuminates how and why the world seems upside down.
This book assesses Italian budgetary policy over the last thirty years. Covering more than three decades of political change and national transformation, it considers the institutional and external factors that have shaped long-term budgetary changes. The book analyses the levels of expenditure allocation across varying budget categories, and compares the budget bill and budget law in order to shed new light on the specific dynamics that have influenced budgetary decision-making processes. Overall, the book provides important conclusions on the role of the budget as a governmental policy instrument, the consequences of multilevel governance over national budgetary policy, and the impact of national and international crises on budgetary changes. With Italy being one of the most important parliamentary democracies in Europe and a key actor within the European Union, these conclusions have important repercussions for other European parliamentary democracies. The book will appeal to scholars and students of European public policy, public administration and economic governance.