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Globalization and the Welfare State

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Abstract

Most scholarly investigations do not support the often heard claim that globalization impairs the welfare state: observed cuts in welfare programmes appear to be mainly driven by domestic factors. The empirical evidence supporting the converse claim – that globalization gains are used to compensate the losers from global economic integration – is, however, also inconclusive. In order to disentangle the multifaceted and potentially inconsistent globalization effects on the plethora of welfare state activities, future research will have to adopt a more explicit micro-orientation, better econometric techniques, and an empirical research strategy that is more firmly based on political economic theories.

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Ursprung, H.W. (2018). Globalization and the Welfare State. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2099

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