Institutional stickiness through subsidiarity: Germany’s childcare guarantee

Anna Claire Flowers

Journal of Institutional Economics, 2026, vol. 22, e37

Abstract: Childcare has held a place in national and international policy conversations in recent decades as governments seek to expand economic opportunities for women. Germany has passed several policies towards this end since reunification, including a legal right, or guarantee, for all children to have access to subsidised care. Scholars across disciplines have taken note of the regional patterns that persist in citizens’ uptake of subsidised childcare programmes. This article analyses the patterns through an institutional economics lens, applying Boettke, Coyne, and Leeson’s (2008) institutional stickiness framework to policy changes that have exhibited varying levels of success in former East and West Germany. Subsidiarity acts as a channel for institutional stickiness, allowing local values to shape both the supply of and the demand for public childcare.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (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:cup:jinsec:v:22:y:2026:i::p:e37_37

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Institutional Economics from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().