Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies

Presentation and discussion of the book Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies. How Have Growth Regimes Evolved? , co-edited by Anke Hassel and Bruno Palier and recently published by Oxford University Press. 

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Program: 

After a brief presentation by Anke Hassel (Hertie School) and Bruno Palier (Sciences Po, CEE, LIEPP) the book will be discussed by distinguished scholars from CIVICA universities:

• Béla Greskovits (Central European University)
• Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute)
• Alexander Kentikelenis (Bocconi University)
• Waltraud Schelkle (London School of Economics)

About the book: 

The volume Growth and Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies. How Have Growth Regimes Evolved? takes stock of the major economic challenges that advanced industrial democracies have faced since the early 1990s and the responses by governments to them. It has three goals: firstly, to further our understanding of how political economies have transformed over the past decades; secondly, to analyse the contribution of governments to these changes, by looking at their growth strategies and thirdly, to highlight and analyse the role of the reforms of welfare systems in this transformative change.

It maps and provides general understanding of the evolution of growth regimes in advanced capitalist countries. It identifies five main growth regimes in contemporary advanced capitalist economies (three export-led and two domestic demand-led ones). These five growth regimes are supported by specific growth strategies based on particular welfare reforms: export of high-quality manufacturing (to be associated with dualization of welfare); export of dynamic services (to be associated with social investment); foreign direct investment (FDI)-financed export-led growth (to be associated with fiscal and social attractiveness); domestic consumption driven by financialization (to be associated with commodification of welfare); and domestic consumption driven by wages and welfare (to be associated with social protectionism). Under European Union (EU) pressure, this last strategy turned rather into a “competitiveness through impoverishment” one.

The book combines a supply side approach to economic growth as advocated by the Varieties of Capitalism Literature with a demand side perspective as the recent discussion on growth models has exemplified. Both supply and demand are heavily shaped by the welfare state which provides for skills through education systems, stimulates demand through public or private spending on social protection. The book focuses on the analysis of welfare reforms as growth strategies pursued by governments in an era characterised by financialization and the rise of the knowledge economy.

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