While nineteenth-century conservatives feared that the advent of democratic government would lead to a major redistribution of wealth, democracy has proven relatively gentle with the wealthy. This paper analyzes the politics of wealth taxes, drawing on the rights of both the public choice...

This commentary evaluates the new social policy paradigm, which shifts the emphasis from income redistribution to investment in human capital. Canadian governments have embraced the first side of this approach, restructuring income-security programs in ways that reduce the level of economic...

Eine der Funktionsbedingungen für Kassenwettbewerb ist, dass Risikoselektion unterbundenwird. Denn Gegenstand des Kassenwettbewerbs sollen nicht bestimmte Merkmale vonVersicherten sein (z.B. der Gesundheitszustand), vielmehr sollen die Anreize zur Verbesserungder Qualität und Effizienz der...

The question whether and how warfare has influenced the development of advanced Western welfare states is contested. So far, scholarly work either focused on the trade-off between military and social spending or on case studies of individual countries. What is missing, however, is a systematic...

Public policy shapes the lives of individuals, and even more so if they depend on state support. But to what extent can well-being differences between individuals living in different European states be traced back to the specific national public policy designs? This paper tests the intervening...