IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/1109.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Future of Welfare Services: How Worried Should We Be about Wagner, Baumol and Ageing?

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Welfare services are an important part of the Nordic welfare states both financially and for welfare state redistribution. Baumol’s cost disease, Wagner’s law, and population ageing are often said to bring challenges for the future provision of welfare services. While none of the three poses an immediate threat against the financial sustainability of the welfare state, they have important implications for distribution and for the political support for the welfare state. The combination demographic change, a higher relative price of welfare services and increasing demand for welfare services may force politicians to make a difficult choice between increasing taxes, allowing people to top up publicly financed services with additional private financing, or risk eroding support for the welfare state.

Suggested Citation

  • Bergh, Andreas, 2016. "The Future of Welfare Services: How Worried Should We Be about Wagner, Baumol and Ageing?," Working Paper Series 1109, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp1109.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Durevall, Dick & Henrekson, Magnus, 2011. "The futile quest for a grand explanation of long-run government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 708-722, August.
    2. repec:aia:ginidp:dp53 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    4. Getzen, Thomas E., 2000. "Health care is an individual necessity and a national luxury: applying multilevel decision models to the analysis of health care expenditures," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 259-270, March.
    5. Assar Lindbeck, 2006. "Sustainable social spending," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(4), pages 303-324, August.
    6. Hindriks, Jean & Myles, Gareth D., 2013. "Intermediate Public Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262018691, December.
    7. Nigar Hashimzade & Jean Hindriks & Gareth D. Myles, 2006. "Solutions Manual to Accompany Intermediate Public Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582694, December.
    8. Torben M. Andersen & Claus T. Kreiner, 2017. "Baumol's Cost Disease and the Sustainability of the Welfare State," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(335), pages 417-429, July.
    9. Gouveia, Miguel, 1997. "Majority Rule and the Public Provision of a Private Good," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 93(3-4), pages 221-244, December.
    10. Productivity Commission, 2005. "Impacts of Advances in Medical Technology in Australia," Research Reports, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia, number 17, July.
    11. Parkin, David & McGuire, Alistair & Yule, Brian, 1987. "Aggregate health care expenditures and national income : Is health care a luxury good?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 109-127, June.
    12. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
    13. Henrekson, Magnus, 1993. "Wagner's Law--A Spurious Relationship?," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 48(3), pages 406-415.
    14. Verbist, G. (Gerlinde) & Matsaganis, M. (Manos), 2012. "GINI DP 53: The Redistributive Capacity of Services in the EU," GINI Discussion Papers 53, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    15. Abdul Abdullah & Hristos Doucouliagos & Elizabeth Manning, 2015. "Does Education Reduce Income Inequality? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 301-316, April.
    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. Marco Gallegati & Massimo Tamberi, 2022. "Long swings in the growth of government expenditure: an international historical perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 227-248, September.
    2. Dotti, Valerio, 2019. "The political economy of public education," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 35-52.
    3. Irandoust, Manuchehr, 2019. "Wagner on government spending and national income: A new look at an old relationship," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 636-646.
    4. Mujaheed Shaikh & Afschin Gandjour, 2019. "Pharmaceutical expenditure and gross domestic product: Evidence of simultaneous effects using a two‐step instrumental variables strategy," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 101-122, January.
    5. Jacob, Johanna & Lundin, Douglas, 2005. "A median voter model of health insurance with ex post moral hazard," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 407-426, March.
    6. Durevall, Dick & Henrekson, Magnus, 2011. "The futile quest for a grand explanation of long-run government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 708-722, August.
    7. HINDRIKS, Jean, 2000. "Public versus private insurance: a political economy argument," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2000058, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. Shuyun May Li, Solmaz Moslehi, Siew Ling Yew, 2012. "Public-Private Mix of Health Expenditure: A Political Economy Approach and A Quantitative Exercise," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1157, The University of Melbourne.
    9. Dotti, Valerio, 2014. "The Political Economy of Publicly Provided Private Goods," MPRA Paper 54026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Jacob, Johanna & Lundin, Douglas, 2001. "A Median Voter Model of Health Insurance with Ex Post Moral Hazard," Working Paper Series 2001:7, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    11. Simona GRASSI, 2006. "On the characteristics of a mixed system of provision of a private good. An application to health care," Departmental Working Papers 2006-14, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    12. Nuscheler, Robert & Roeder, Kerstin, 2015. "Financing and funding health care: Optimal policy and political implementability," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 197-208.
    13. Lehmann, M. Christian & Matarazzo, Hellen, 2019. "Voters’ response to in-kind transfers: Quasi-experimental evidence from prescription drug cost-sharing in Brazil," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    14. Arijit Sen, 2024. "A tale of declining public provision and burgeoning private supplements," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 287-308, October.
    15. Hanming Fang & Peter Norman, 2014. "Toward an efficiency rationale for the public provision of private goods," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(2), pages 375-408, June.
    16. Colombier, Carsten & Weber, Werner, 2009. "Projecting health-care expenditure for Switzerland: further evidence against the 'red-herring' hypothesis," MPRA Paper 26747, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2009.
    17. Pfarr, Christian & Schmid, Andreas, 2013. "The political economics of social health insurance: the tricky case of individuals’ preferences," MPRA Paper 44534, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Tamara Fioroni, 2010. "Optimal savings and health spending over the life cycle," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 11(4), pages 355-365, August.
    19. Di Matteo, Livio, 2000. "The determinants of the public-private mix in Canadian health care expenditures: 1975-1996," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 87-112, June.
    20. Britz, Volker & Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Predtetchinski, Arkadi, 2014. "On the convergence to the Nash bargaining solution for action-dependent bargaining protocols," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 178-183.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Welfare services; Redistribution; Baumol’s disease; Wagner’s law; Population aging;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:hhs:iuiwop:1109. 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: Elisabeth Gustafsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iuiiise.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.