Problems and Paradoxes in Economic and Social Policies of Modern Welfare States

W. Allen Spivey

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1985, vol. 479, issue 1, 14-30

Abstract: Relationships between economic growth rates and the expansion of welfare expenditures in Western nations are examined. The point is made that real gross national product grew rapidly from about 1959 until about 1973, but that since 1973 it has either grown slowly or not at all, while welfare expenditures and entitlements have continued to escalate. Forecasts of a variety of important economic variables in these countries for the near term are presented and discussed, and it is concluded that despite the current modest economic improvement, difficulties in funding welfare states will continue throughout the remainder of the 1980s. Some consideration is given to problems in welfare states to the end of the century, and further difficulties in funding and managing these states are forecast for this period as well. Problems of welfare states are not regarded as short-term by-products of maladjustments experienced in the Western world in the last 10 years but rather as long-term characteristics.

Date: 1985
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716285479001002 (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:sae:anname:v:479:y:1985:i:1:p:14-30

DOI: 10.1177/0002716285479001002

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().