Is German Domestic Social Policy Politically Controversial?

Niklas Potrafke

No 2011-06, Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz from Department of Economics, University of Konstanz

Abstract: This paper investigates empirically the influence of government ideology on social policy using German data. Examining the funding and the benefits of social security and public healthcare policy, my results suggest that policies implemented by governments dominated by left- and rightwing parties were similar over the 1951-2007 period. Leftwing governments, however, spent more in the 1970s and rightwing governments did so after German Reunification in 1990. Since policy convergence encourages new parties to enter the political arena, and party platforms on social policy matters are likely to undergo further changes in light of demographic change, the observed pattern may thus be a transitory phenomenon.

Keywords: social policy; political business and partisan cycles; government ideology; policy polarization; demographic change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H52 H55 I38 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2011-04-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/wiwi/workingpaperseries/WP_Potrafke-6-11.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is German domestic social policy politically controversial? (2012)
Working Paper: Is German domestic social policy politically controversial? (2012)
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:knz:dpteco:1106

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.wiwi.uni-konstanz.de/en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz from Department of Economics, University of Konstanz Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Office Ursprung ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).