Abstract
This paper distinguishes among three types of generosity of social security systems: average generosity, generosity towards early retirement and generosity towards the poor. On the basis of theoretical predictions, it examines the statistical correlations among those types of generosity for 14 OECD countries over the period 1985–2000. It also shows how they have evolved over time and tries to relate this evolution to the process of economic integration. There are three main findings, the first one being a positive relation between average social security spending and poverty alleviation. There is the negative relation between average spending and inequality reduction. Finally, over the period 1985–1995 one sees that poverty alleviation increases on average, but to a degree that decreases with economic openness.
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We acknowledge financial support from the Belgian FNRS and from the European RTN research project. We are grateful to Michael Förster for his comments and remarks. We also thank two anonymous referees for their comments. Pierre Pestieau initiated this research while visiting DECVP at the World Bank. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference on “The Distributional Effects of Government Spending and Taxation”, October 15–16, 2004, The Levy Institute of Bard College. Comments from the participants were very helpful.
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Lefèbvre, M., Pestieau, P. The generosity of the welfare state towards the elderly. Empirica 33, 351–360 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-006-9021-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-006-9021-0