IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rug/rugwps/09-572.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are social welfare states facing a race to the bottom? A theoretical perspective

Author

Listed:
  • G. RAYP
  • B. VANBERGEN

Abstract

Every step towards the completion of European integration appears to be met with renewed concern over its potential negative social side-effects, particularly as regards to protection against social risks (unemployment, sickness and invalidity, age,. . . ) and poverty. In the 1980s and 1990s, governments of different Member States as well as the two EU Commissions headed by Jacques Delors took seriously the menace of .beggar-thy-neighbour. policies by means of in- come or social security measures in an integrated market. The EMU may have provided an even greater temptation to do so because other economic policy instruments such as trade policy or monetary policy are kept under tight control. Since the end of the 1990s, there are indeed some signs that the welfare state is rolling back in core EU-member states such as Germany, the Netherlands and France. The fear of lower social protection levels and harsher labour conditions in a more integrated European Union are often cited as an explanation of the opposition against further economic integration in Europe

Suggested Citation

  • G. Rayp & B. Vanbergen, 2009. "Are social welfare states facing a race to the bottom? A theoretical perspective," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 09/572, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  • Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:09/572
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wps-feb.ugent.be/Papers/wp_09_572.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rikard Forslid & Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano, 2003. "An analytically solvable core-periphery model," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 229-240, July.
    2. Baldwin, Richard E., 2001. "Core-periphery model with forward-looking expectations," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 21-49, February.
    3. Manuel Leite–Monteiro & Maurice Marchand & Pierre Pestieau, 2003. "Employment Subsidy with Capital Mobility," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(2), pages 327-344, April.
    4. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre, 2004. "Factor mobility and redistribution," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 57, pages 2529-2560, Elsevier.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Lambert, Peter J. & Millimet, Daniel L. & Slottje, Daniel, 2003. "Inequality aversion and the natural rate of subjective inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1061-1090, May.
    7. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    8. Peter Egger & Tobias Seidel, 2008. "Agglomeration and fair wages," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 41(1), pages 271-291, February.
    9. Solow, Robert M., 1979. "Another possible source of wage stickiness," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 79-82.
    10. Pflüger, Michael & Südekum, Jens, 2008. "Integration, agglomeration and welfare," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 544-566, March.
    11. Thierry Verdier, 2005. "Socially Responsible Trade Integration," Post-Print halshs-00754732, HAL.
    12. André Sapir & François Bourguignon & Boris Pleskovic, 2005. "Annual World Bank Conference on development economics: Europe :are we on track to achieve the millennium development goals?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/8348, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Arjan Lejour & Harrie Verbon, 1996. "Capital mobility, wage bargaining, and social insurance policies in an economic union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(4), pages 495-513, October.
    14. Martin, Philippe & Rogers, Carol Ann, 1995. "Industrial location and public infrastructure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 335-351, November.
    15. George R. Zodrow & Peter Mieszkowski, 2019. "Pigou, Tiebout, Property Taxation, and the Underprovision of Local Public Goods," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 17, pages 525-542, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    17. Baldwin, Richard, 2000. "Regulatory Protectionism, Developing Nations and a Two-Tier World Trade System," CEPR Discussion Papers 2574, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. B. Merlevede & G. Rayp & S. Van Parys & T. Verbeke, 2011. "Do EU15 countries compete over labour taxes?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/750, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baldwin, Richard E. & Krugman, Paul, 2004. "Agglomeration, integration and tax harmonisation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-23, February.
    2. Fabien Candau, 2008. "Entrepreneurs' Location Choice And Public Policies: A Survey Of The New Economic Geography," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 909-952, December.
    3. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2004. "Agglomeration and economic geography," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 58, pages 2563-2608, Elsevier.
    4. Kristian Behrens & Frédéric Robert‐Nicoud, 2009. "Krugman's Papers in Regional Science: The 100 dollar bill on the sidewalk is gone and the 2008 Nobel Prize well‐deserved," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(2), pages 467-489, June.
    5. Peter Egger & Wolfgang Eggert & Mario Larch, 2014. "Structural Operations and Net Migration Across European Union Member Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 352-378, May.
    6. An-Ming Wang, 2016. "Agglomeration and simplified housing boom," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(5), pages 936-956, April.
    7. Rainald Borck & Michael Pflüger & Matthias Wrede, 2010. "A simple theory of industry location and residence choice," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(6), pages 913-940, November.
    8. Jyh-Fa Tsai, 2019. "Tax competition with spillover public goods in a median location model," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 831-862, October.
    9. Fabien Candau, 2011. "Is Agglomeration Desirable?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 101-102, pages 203-227.
    10. von Ehrlich, Maximilian & Seidel, Tobias, 2015. "Regional implications of financial market development: Industry location and income inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 85-102.
    11. Fabien Candau, 2008. "Urban costs, Trade costs and Tax Competition," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 118(5), pages 625-661.
    12. Ugo Fratesi, 2008. "Regional policy from a supra-regional perspective," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(3), pages 681-703, September.
    13. Fabien Candau, 2008. "Good governance, trade and agglomeration," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 87(4), pages 483-504, November.
    14. José M. Gaspar, 2018. "A prospective review on New Economic Geography," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 61(2), pages 237-272, September.
    15. Borck, Rainald & Pfluger, Michael, 2006. "Agglomeration and tax competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 647-668, April.
    16. Okubo, Toshihiro, 2009. "Trade liberalisation and agglomeration with firm heterogeneity: Forward and backward linkages," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 530-541, September.
    17. Fabien Candau, 2013. "Trade, FDI and Migration," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 441-461, September.
    18. Corinne Bagoulla, 2006. "Localisation industrielle et spécialisation. Les rôles des infrastructures, des coûts de production et de la taille de marché dans un cadre Nord Sud," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(4), pages 705-726.
    19. Stefan Gruber & Luigi Marattin, 2010. "Taxation, infrastructure and endogenous trade costs in new economic geography," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 89(1), pages 203-222, March.
    20. Luca, Spinesi, 2005. "Vertical and Horizontal Innovation : Effects of Globalization and Migration on Inequality, Growth and Human Capital Accumulation," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2005028, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:09/572. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nathalie Verhaeghe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ferugbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.