The Economics Of Social Protection

This book will be of interest to anyone interested in the technical detail of funding mechanisms, and those not so inclined will still find plenty of thought-provoking material to explore. . . This book is a treasure-trove of empirical data, theoretical discussion, and practical application, and also as a useful indicator of how much of Europe understands social protection. Citizen s Income This book focuses on arrangements for redistributing consumption opportunities over the life cycle and for providing compensation for income losses or large expenditures due to reasons such as illness and unemployment. After extensive coverage of the nature of inequalities in income and wealth in a market economy, and various notions of social justice, the author discusses public and private transfers in cash or in kind related to old age, childhood, illness and the like. Importantly, the book takes into account both equity and efficiency aspects. This concise discussion of the welfare state and its alternatives will be of great interest to students of economics at the intermediate level as well as to graduate students of sociology, social work and other social sciences. It will also appeal to politicians and civil service managers with an interest in the fundamentals of social policy.

This Element provides an analysis of social protection from an economic perspective. It describes the design of social protection programs, assesses the efficiency and performance of social protection programs, analyzes the relative merits of social and private insurance, and focuses on the implications of asymmetric information.

This highly original and thought-provoking book examines the recent expansion of social protection in China, India, Brazil and South Africa four countries experiencing rapid economic growth and social change. The authors explore the developments in each country, analyse the impact of government cash transfers and discuss key future trends. The study reveals that social protection has complemented economic growth and supported development efforts and has been fundamental to promoting equitable and sustainable societies. The book is essential reading for students of social policy, economics, development studies and public administration and will be an important resource for policymakers and administrators everywhere.

What circumstances or behaviors turn poverty into a cycle that perpetuates across generations? The answer to this question carries especially important implications for the design and evaluation of policies and projects intended to reduce poverty. Yet a major challenge analysts and policymakers face in understanding poverty traps is the sheer number of mechanisms—not just financial, but also environmental, physical, and psychological—that may contribute to the persistence of poverty all over the world. The research in this volume explores the hypothesis that poverty is self-reinforcing because the equilibrium behaviors of the poor perpetuate low standards of living. Contributions explore the dynamic, complex processes by which households accumulate assets and increase their productivity and earnings potential, as well as the conditions under which some individuals, groups, and economies struggle to escape poverty. Investigating the full range of phenomena that combine to generate poverty traps—gleaned from behavioral, health, and resource economics as well as the sociology, psychology, and environmental literatures—chapters in this volume also present new evidence that highlights both the insights and the limits of a poverty trap lens. The framework introduced in this volume provides a robust platform for studying well-being dynamics in developing economies.

Providing universal access to social protection and health systems for all members of society, including the poor and vulnerable, is increasingly considered crucial to international development debates. This is the first book to explore from an interdisciplinary and global perspective the reforms of social protection systems introduced in recent years by many governments of low and middle-income countries. Although a growing body of literature has been concerned with the design and impact of social protection, less attention has been directed towards analyzing and explaining these reform processes themselves. Through case studies of African, Asian, and Latin American countries, this book examines the ‘global phenomenon’ of recent social protection reforms in low and middle-income areas, and how it differs across countries both in terms of scope and speed of institutional change. Exploring the major domestic and international factors affecting the political feasibility of social protection reform, the book outlines the successes and failures of recent reform initiatives. This invaluable book combines contributions from both academics and practitioner experts to give students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of social security, economics, law and political science an in-depth understanding of political reform processes in developing countries.

The potential role of social protection in the development process has received heightened recognition in recent years, yet making a strong investment case for social protection remains particularly challenging in many emerging and developing countries. This report challenges us to think deeply about the economic rationale for social protection investments through an inclusive development lens. It helps us understand the links between social protection, growth and inequality; how to measure those links empirically; social protection’s impact on inclusive growth; and how to build a more solid economic case for greater social protection investments.

This exciting and innovative Handbook provides readers with a comprehensive and globally relevant overview of the instruments, actors and design features of social protection systems, as well as their application and impacts in practice. It is the first book that centres around system building globally, a theme that has gained political importance yet has received relatively little attention in academia.

This book reflects on the public policies, programmes and regulatory frameworks that are taking a rights-based approach to expanding social protection coverage and benefits in Latin America, with a view to achieving universal coverage. Its discussion of the policy tools and programmes pursued in the region aims to provide the reader with technical and programmatic insights for assembling and coordinating public policies within consistent and sustainable social protection systems. The combination of normative orientations and stock of technical knowledge, together with advances regarding the rights-based approach to social protection within a life cycle framework, afford the reader not only a tool box of specific social protection instruments, but also an in-depth examination of related political economy aspects.