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Social Investment and State Capacity. CEPS Working Document No. 419/February 2016

Beblavý, Miroslav and Hájková, Alžbeta (2016) Social Investment and State Capacity. CEPS Working Document No. 419/February 2016. [Working Paper]

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    Abstract

    This paper looks at the difference between the levels and nature of social policy expenditure in northern and northwest European countries and the countries of southern, central, and eastern Europe, and examines the relationship between social investment and state capacity in these country groupings. The authors show that southern and eastern countries have a much greater preference for ‘compensating’ rather than ‘capacitating’ social policy spending. Furthermore, the state capacity in these countries is lower, which generates less state revenue. Based on these observations they conclude that low state capacity and low state revenue go hand in hand with the preference for capacitating social policies, as these policies involve less delegation and discretion than social investment policies. This paper shows that high state capacity is probably a necessary precondition for effective social investment policies, although some limited alternative paths do exist.

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    Item Type: Working Paper
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > social policy > general
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels) > CEPS Working Documents
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 29 Feb 2016 13:18
    Number of Pages: 13
    Last Modified: 29 Feb 2016 13:36
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/72908

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