Visiting the main employment office in Warsaw in late 1989, I asked how many people they were currently paying benefits to. The answer (in a city of 1.6 million people) was five. A year later, unemployment in Poland was more than a million, and by December 1993 was three million. There is no...

This paper discusses how to construct student loans to ensure that, for the most part, they count as private spending. Though the specifics relate to the finance of higher education, the issue has much wider ramifications for flexible combinations of public and private activity, for example in...

The decision to move to a market economy sets in train two major forces. 1. The fall in output has led to a reduction in personal incomes and created a fiscal crisis. 2. A widening earnings and income distribution is a result of wage and price liberalisation, and is an inherent part of the...

The demographic database of Istat (www.istat.it)is explored and the main facts are extracted and described, both at the aggregate national level as well as at the regional one. This paper is completely self-standing but, at the same time, poses the basis for a more general analysis that will be...

Though directly an assessment of the 2003 White Paper on higher education in England and Wales, this paper offers analysis and strategic conclusions that apply to all advanced countries. After introductory discussion, successive sections weigh up current arrangements (generally unfavourably),...

This paper discusses the building blocks of pension reform in the light of economic theory, and their application to different types of economy. The opening section sets out the simple economics of pensions. The second section discusses a series of myths which have proved remarkably persistent....

'I propose here the view that, when the market fails to achieve an optimal state, society will, to some extent at least, recognize the gap, and nonmarket social institutions will arise attempting to bridge it....' (Kenneth Arrow 1963, p. 947). 'Economic theorists traditionally banish discussions...

The government’s pensions Green Paper – A new contract for welfare: partnership in pensions – proposes fundamental changes to the UK’s retirement income system. Members of CASE and of the Department of Social Policy at LSE have looked at the likely implications of the reforms for...

The Ecofin-Oecd methodology is applied to reconstruct the health care expenditure evolution in Italy and in the Region Emilia Romagna. The reconstructed series can be compared to the historical series, highlighting the different capabilities of the Italian average and of the Region Emilia...