Pontusson Inequality and Prosperity

Social Europe vs. Liberal America
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5017-1338-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Cornell Studies in Political Economy

What are the relative merits of the American and European socioeconomic systems? Long-standing debates have heated up in recent years with the expansion of the European Union and increasingly sharp political and cultural differences between the United States and Europe. In Inequality and Prosperity, Jonas Pontusson provides a comparative overview of the two major models of labor markets and welfare systems in the advanced industrial world: the "liberal capitalist" system of the United States and Britain and the "social market" capitalism of northern Europe. These two models balance concerns of efficiency and equity in fundamentally different ways. In the 1990s the much-heralded forces of globalization (together with demographic changes and attendant political pressures) seemed to threaten the very existence of the social-market economies of Europe. Were the social compacts of Sweden and Germany outmoded? Would varieties of capitalism remain possible, or were labor-market and social-welfare arrangements converging on the U.S. norm? Pontusson opposes the notion of inevitable convergence: he believes that social-market economies can survive and indeed flourish in the contemporary world economy. He bases his argument on an enormous amount of highly specialized research on eighteen countries, using national-level data for the last thirty years. Among the areas he explores are labor-market dynamics, income distribution, employment performance, wage bargaining, firm-level performance, and the changing possibilities for the welfare state.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pontusson, Jonas

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Sozialpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik Soziale Dienste, Soziale Organisationen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Gewerkschaften, Industrielle Beziehungen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents Foreword 000 Acknowledgments 000 1. Rethinking the Trade-Off between Growth and Equality 000 2. Varieties of Capitalism 000 3. Income Distribution and Labor Markets 000 4. Employment Performance 000 5. Macro-Economic Management and Wage Bargaining 000 6. Participation, Security, Mobility, and Skills 000 7. Welfare States, Redistribution, and Growth 000 8. Welfare States in Retrenchment 000 9. Directions for Progressive Reform 000 Notes 000 Index 000

Über Autor(innen)

Jonas Pontusson is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He is the author of The Limits of Social Democracy, also from Cornell, and coeditor of Unions, Employers, and Central Banks