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Do Social Rights Affect Social Outcomes?

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Christian Bjørnskov

    ()

    (Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University)

  • Jacob Mchangama

    (Center for Political Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark)

Abstract

While the United Nations and NGOs are pushing for global judicialization of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs), little is known of their consequences. We provide evidence of the effects of introducing three types of ESCRs into the constitution: the rights to education, health and social security. Employing a large panel covering annual data from 160 countries in the period 1960-2010, we find no robust evidence of positive effects of ESCRs. We do, however, document adverse medium-term effects on education and inflation.

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File URL: ftp://ftp.econ.au.dk/afn/wp/13/wp13_18.pdf
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Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University in its series Economics Working Papers with number 2013-18.

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Length: 52
Date of creation: 10 Sep 2013
Handle: RePEc:aah:aarhec:2013-18
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.econ.au.dk/afn/

Keywords: Human rights; human development; constitutional political economy;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • K19 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Other
  • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
  • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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Cited by:

  1. Romain Espinosa, 2016. "State provision of constitutional goods," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 1-40, March.

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