IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ast/wpaper/0061.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Full employment reloaded. Welfare state and full employment between Constitution and Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Leonello Tronti

Abstract

The paper summarizes the evolution of the welfare state concept and its link to economic growth and full employment, along a complex itinerary running for more than a century, from the work of Adolf Wagner (1878) to James Meade’s proposals (1989, 1995). The overview focuses on the theoretical links of the first experiments of the welfare state with the foundation of welfare economics (Pigou, 1920), the establishment of the concept of human capital (Knight, 1944; Schultz, 1961) and the systematization of the welfare state design offered by Beveridge (1942). In the same years, the full employment goal is affirmed as achievable (Keynes, 1936; Beveridge, 1944; Roosevelt, 1945), meanwhile the Italian Constitution (1948) proposes a major advance, affirming full employment as a substantive freedom. With the end of Bretton Woods (1971) and the oil shocks (1973, 1979) stagflation spreads to developed economies, and both the welfare state and full employment face a setback. Wagner’s law finds a more evolved expression in the Laffer curve (1974), while monetary policy becomes restrictive and full employment has to give way to the Nairu (Modigliani and Papademos, 1975; Tobin, 1980). This is the climate in which Meade proposes a new and vital link between the welfare state and full employment: a proposal in which worker shares combine with topsy-turvy nationalization, and public credit with the social dividend. A proposal out of the box, but worth reflecting on in depth

Suggested Citation

  • Leonello Tronti, "undated". "Full employment reloaded. Welfare state and full employment between Constitution and Economics," Working Papers 0061, ASTRIL - Associazione Studi e Ricerche Interdisciplinari sul Lavoro.
    • Handle: RePEc:ast:wpaper:0061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://host.uniroma3.it/associazioni/astril/db/ff0266e2-07a4-48a3-a641-cac952343200.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin O'Neill & Stuart White, 2019. "James Meade, public ownership, and the idea of a citizens' trust," International Journal of Public Policy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(1/2), pages 21-37.
    2. Meade,James Edward, 1995. "Full Employment Regained?," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521556972, June.
    3. John W. Kendrick, 1976. "The Formation and Stocks of Total Capital," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kend76-1, October.
    4. Franco Modigliani & Lucas Papademos, 1975. "Targets for Monetary Policy in the Coming Year," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(1), pages 141-166.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Guillaume Allègre & Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2012. "Dépenses publiques d'éducation et inégalités. Une perspective de cycle de vie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 63(6), pages 1055-1079.
    2. Luis Eduardo Arango & Carlos Esteban Posada, 2006. "The Time-Varying Long-Run Unemployment Rate: The Colombian Case," Borradores de Economia 389, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    3. Depta, Peter & Ravalli, Frank & Harding, Don, 1994. "Extended Measures of Investment and Saving," MPRA Paper 3319, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Zhang, Xiaobei & Wang, Xiaojun, 2021. "Measures of human capital and the mechanics of economic growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. William F. Mitchell, 2020. "Debt and Deficits—A Modern Monetary Theory Perspective," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 53(4), pages 566-576, December.
    6. Robert E. Lipsey & Irving B. Kravis, 1987. "Is the U.S. a Spendthrift Nation?," NBER Working Papers 2274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Chanda, Areendam, 2008. "The rise in returns to education and the decline in household savings," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 436-469, February.
    8. Emilie Jasova, 2014. "A Model for Estimation of NAIRU Extended by Demand Shocks and its Application to Business Cycle Analysis in the Labour Market in Hungary and Poland," Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences 0401788, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    9. Aurélien Goutsmedt & Goulven Rubin, 2018. "Robert J. Gordon and the introduction of the natural rate hypothesis in the Keynesian framework," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01821825, HAL.
    10. Aysegul Corakci & Tolga Omay & Mübariz Hasanov, 2022. "Hysteresis and stochastic convergence in Eurozone unemployment rates: evidence from panel unit roots with smooth breaks and asymmetric dynamics," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 13(1), pages 11-55, March.
    11. W. Max Corden, 1996. "James Meade 1907–1995," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 72(217), pages 172-174, June.
    12. Chen, Been-Lon & Lu, Chia-Hui, 2013. "Optimal factor tax incidence in two-sector human capital-based models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 75-94.
    13. Steven Pressman, 2005. "Income Guarantees and the Equity-Efficiency Tradeoff," LIS Working papers 348, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Lucas Papademos, 2005. "Macroeconomic theory and monetary policy: the contributions of Franco Modigliani and the ongoing debate," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(233-234), pages 187-214.
    15. Cem Ertur & Wilfried Koch, 2006. "The Role of Human Capital and Technological Interdependence in Growth and Convergence Processes: International Evidence," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_029, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    16. O'Donoghue, Cathal & Colombino, Ugo & Narazani, Edlira & Locatelli, Marilena & Shima, Isilda, 2008. "Behavioural and welfare effects of basic income policies: a simulation for European countries," EUROMOD Working Papers EM5/08, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Breton, Theodore R., 2004. "Can institutions or education explain world poverty? An augmented Solow model provides some insights," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 45-69, March.
    18. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Marc Giannoni & Aysegul Sahin, 2019. "A Unified Approach to Measuring u," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 143-238.
    19. Chen, Hung-Ju & Fang, I-Hsiang, 2013. "Migration, social security, and economic growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 386-399.
    20. Bozani, Vasiliki & Drydakis, Nick, 2011. "Studying the NAIRU and its Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 6079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Welfare state; Wagner law; full employment; welfare economics; human capital; substantial freedom; capabilities; stagflation; fiscal crisis; Nairu; Laffer curve; social dividend;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E64 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Incomes Policy; Price Policy
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J53 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Labor-Management Relations; Industrial Jurisprudence
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    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:ast:wpaper:0061. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://host.uniroma3.it/associazioni/astril .

    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.