Public Insurance and Mobility: An Exploratory Analysis in the Context of European Economic Unification

Dominique Bureau and Cécile Richard

Annals of Economics and Statistics, 1997, issue 45, 275-290

Abstract: Many studies on the future of social security systems in a unified Europe treat the issue as merely a particular aspect of the broader question of redistribution within a federation with mobile agents. As a result, such studies typically recommend their gradual centralisation. This paper which is based on the model of Rothschild, Stiglitz and Wilson adopts a much less categorical approach, emphasising the need to clarify whether social security systems principally seek insurance or redistribution. In this analytical framework competition between public insurance systems can generate efficiency. It can also remain compatible with cross-subsidisation if the proportion of low risks is sufficiently large. The result depends on the relative proportion of high risks, on the goals of the national social security systems, and on their behaviour when competing with each over.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20076060 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adr:anecst:y:1997:i:45:p:275-290

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Economics and Statistics is currently edited by Laurent Linnemer

More articles in Annals of Economics and Statistics from GENES Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Secretariat General () and Laurent Linnemer ().