It has been argued that the notion of a European social model is misleading and that there are in fact different European social models with different features and different performances in terms of efficiency and equity. In this paper, we look at the welfare state from a political economy point...

Recently, it has been argued that the notion of a European social model is misleading and that there are in fact different European social models with different features and different performances in terms of efficiency and equity. In this paper, we look at the welfare state from a political...

Empirical cross-country evidence suggests that countries position themselves along a sort of Market Regulation (MR)-Social Expenditure (SE) trade-off “line”. Theoretically, it is clear that there exists a certain degree of substitutability between SE and MR, since both can provide a cushion...

Regression results show that more unequal societies tend to spend comparatively more on higher levels of education. In a two-period model with heterogeneous agents, this paper investigates the political determinants of this bias. In the first period, public education is financed by the incumbent...