Service cheques in Europe - a model for Germany? Employment effects and macro-economic costs: five scenarios
In the mid-nineties, near all european governments look almost desperately for a panacea against sluggish growth and high unemployment. Since this problem concerns mainly low-skilled workers, the creation of low-profile jobs in the personal service sector still seems to be one of the most promising solutions. After a long period of scepticism dominating economic thinking about the growth potential of this sector, a renaissance of the service-idea is taking place at the moment. The so called service cheque finds itself at the centre of this new policy approach. Its objective is twofold: to subsidize demand and to reduce the cost of labour. After France and Belgium, Germany is the third country introducing it at a large scale. The findings of this essay back up the opinion that direct welfare benefits, promoting the use of service-cheques, are preferable to those that rely on tax-relief incentives. On the other hand, the idea to provide households with a special welfare benefit in terms of service-cheques could prove risky once the system's high elasticity of output provokes uncontrollable budget deficits. Alternative models should therefore also be considered.
Year of publication: |
1997
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Authors: | Finger, Dirk |
Publisher: |
Berlin : Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) |
Subject: | Haushaltsproduktion | Arbeitsmarktpolitik | Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse | Deutschland | Belgien | Frankreich |
Saved in:
freely available
Series: | WZB Discussion Paper ; FS I 97-201a |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Type of publication (narrower categories): | Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Other identifiers: | 846458160 [GVK] hdl:10419/43920 [Handle] RePEc:zbw:wzblpe:FSI97201a [RePEc] |
Source: |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010303949