This paper is about the relative impact of retirement and social class on individual attitudes towards welfare state policies in advanced industrial democracies. Which factor is more important in explaining individuals' social policy preferences: socio-economic background or retirement? How can...

Dieser Aufsatz greift die in den Siebzigerjahren entwickelten Argumente zur "Unregierbarkeit" einerseits und zum "Spätkapitalismus" andererseits auf und befragt sie nach ihrer heutigen Relevanz. Beide Denkschulen erkannten eine Überforderung des Staats. Während linke Autoren die Ursache in...

Liberalisierungspolitik bezeichnet die politisch herbeigeführte und politisch legitimierte Delegation von Allokations- und Distributionsentscheidungen an Märkte und zielt auf Durchsetzung der Prinzipien der Eigenverantwortung, der dezentralen Entscheidungsfindung und der Konkurrenz. Viele...

Scholars have argued about the impact of fiscal decentralisation on public spending for a long time without coming to any firm theoretical and empirical conclusions. In contrast to earlier studies, this paper looks at the impact of fiscal decentralisation across different types of spending. It...

This paper examines the determinants of the timing of public pension policy retrenchments in 14 affluent democracies. Available research does not satisfactorily capture the multidimensionality of these legislative events, because it relies on indicators of pension policy provisions for current...

The containment of social expenditure growth has been (and still is) a core issue of public policy in advanced industrial countries since the 1980s and has received much academic attention during that period. Among the most extensively discussed explanatory factors of social expenditure are...