The paper analyses the interaction between economic incentives and work norms in the context of social insurance. If the work norm is endogenous in the sense that it is weaker when the population share of beneficiaries is higher, then voters will choose less generous benefits than otherwise. We...

In developed countries, pension systems emerged as a political response to socio-econo-mic changes brought about by industrialisation and urbanisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, new socio-economic changes create both rationales and poli-ti-cal forces for revisions of...

This paper analyzes economic-social interaction in China in connection with the country's change of economic system. I define an economic system in terms of a multi-dimensional vector of broad institutional characteristics, and I emphasize that important features of the social development are...

We analyze economic rationales for, and possible alternatives to, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). We identify various cross-country spillover effects and domestic policy failures as potential rationales. The two sets of problems suggest different corrective measures, and different measures...

This paper analyzes how firms can use job security as an incentive mechanism. The author examines how "macroeconomic job security" (measured by the reemployment probability) may affect productivity differently from "microeconomic job security" (measured by the probability of being retained). The...