Does the welfare state induce risk-taking?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bird, EJ
• 署名单位: California State University System; California State University Fullerton
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(00)00117-1
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 357-383
• 关键词: welfare state; risk-taking

摘要

In cross-national data on individual and country-level characteristics, the variance of log annual income is shown to correlate positively with indicators of redistribution. The database comes from the Panel Comparability (PACO) project, which provides uniquely comparable cross-national panel data, including both Eastern and Western Europe and the US. A random effects permanent income regression is used to estimate income variance. The variance,estimates are then regressed on individual and country characteristics. The results indicate robustly that various measures of risk are higher in countries with a higher share of social spending in GDP. The evidence can be interpreted as support for the argument that the Welfare State encourages risk-taking and thereby economic growth. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.