This paper reconsiders the link between welfare state provision, globalisation and competitiveness empirically. We challenge the conventional wisdom that welfare states, large-scale public provision of social insurance and progressive systems of redistributive taxation are incompatible with...

Fears of rising wage inequality and job loss loom large in current debates on free trade. Surprisingly, however, there exists little academic research on how to compensate those who lose from free trade. This policy paper reviews the existing theoretical literature on trade and compensation, and...

The conventional wisdom is that increasing globalisation requires a reduction in the provision of the welfare state among industrialised countries as the distortions resulting from this type of expenditure undermine international competitiveness and the ability of countries to attract and/or...