The Birth and Growth of the Social Insurance State: Explaining Old-Age and Medical Insurance Across Countries
DSpace/Manakin Repository
The Birth and Growth of the Social Insurance State: Explaining Old-Age and Medical Insurance Across Countries
| Title: | The Birth and Growth of the Social Insurance State: Explaining Old-Age and Medical Insurance Across Countries |
| Author: |
Cutler, David; Johnson, Richard
Note: Order does not necessarily reflect citation order of authors. |
| Citation: | Cutler, David M. and Richard Johnson. 2004. The birth and growth of the social insurance state: Explaining old-age and medical insurance across countries. Public Choice 120(1,2): 87-121. |
| Full Text & Related Files: |
cutler_birthandgrowth.pdf (295.0Kb; PDF) 
|
| Abstract: | We seek to explain why countries have adopted national Old-Age Insurance and Health Insurance programs. Theoretical work has posited several factors that could lead to this adoption: the strain from expanding capitalism; the need for political legitimacy; the desire to transfer to similar people; increased wealth; and the outcome of leviathan government. We relate the probability of a country's creating social insurance to proxies for each of these theories. We find weak evidence that the probability of adopting a system declines with increases in wealth and with greater ethnic heterogeneity. Still, none of the theories is very strongly related to system adoption. We conclude that social insurance can be politically expedient for many different reasons. |
| Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.304168 |
| Terms of Use: | This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA |
| Citable link to this page: | http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:2643658 |
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
-
FAS Scholarly Articles [5171]
Peer reviewed scholarly articles from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University
Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)
