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...

This book provides a comprehensive appraisal of social security in Japan, where traditionally the burden of welfare provision has been the main responsibility of the family and employers, rather than the state. However, an ageing population, changes in family structure and continued recession...

"After more than four decades of real income stagnation, ever-increasing inequality and household financial distress, this book explores how the very fabric of our society is under threat. It argues that although capitalism is imperfect, it can be improved, and harnessing its forces of...

On the premise that pension provision in Europe will dramatically change over the next few decades, this book concentrates on the funded component of pension wealth, and specifically on annuities - financial products that, on the basis of actuarial equivalence, allow the conversion of wealth...

Social welfare policy -- Comparative social welfare policy -- Traditional public interest model -- The public choice perspective -- Government and its bureaucracy -- The origins of the new welfare law -- The genesis of the new welfare law -- Institutional analysis -- An econometric analysis of...

The Lisbon Agenda aims to prepare Europe for globalization by updating European policies for research, innovation, competition, trade, employment, education, social protection, environment and energy at both the European and national levels. Designed to inspire the new cycle of the Lisbon Agenda...

With global finance reshaping the world economy, this insightful new book provides a full account of the EU's financial integration strategy, together with a critical assessment arguing the case for social control over global finance. Written by acknowledged experts in European finance, this...

This comprehensive second edition of The Elgar Companion to Social Economics presents an overview of a dynamic and growing field in economics that emphasizes the key role that values play in the economy and in economic life. Social economics treats the economy and economics as being embedded in...

The purpose of this book is to reconsider economic liberalism from the viewpoint of political liberalism. The author argues that advocates of economic liberalism largely overlook empirical political preferences which, in many societies, go far beyond a limited role of the state. Recent...

The "knowledge economy" is a concept commonly deemed too ambiguous and elusive to hold any significance in current economic debate. This valuable book seeks to refute that myth. Presenting an important collection of views, from a number of leading scholars, this innovative volume visibly...