"New in Paperback. While everyone agrees that Social Security is a vital and necessary government program, there have been widely divergent plans for reforming it. Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag, two of the nation's foremost economists, propose a reform plan that would rescue the program both from its projected financial problems and from those who would destroy the program in order to save it. Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2004, the Social Security debate has moved to the center of the domestic policy agenda. In this updated edition of Saving Social Security, the authors analyze the Bush Administration's proposal for individual accounts and discuss the so-called ""price indexing"" proposal to restore long-term solvency through changing how initial benefits would be calculated. Soc ial Security is essis essential reading for policymakers involved in reform, analysts, students, and all those interested in the fate of this safeguard of American lives. ""An honest, transparent and comprehensive approach to making the much needed reforms to the Social Security program.""-Journal of Pensions, Economics, and Finance ""Very accessible presentation of facts, analysis of underlying problems, comparison of opinions, and argument for proposed reforms.""-Future Survey Exhaustively researched and deeply entrenched in practical issues and mathematical calculations... a highly recommended ray of hope against a looming national crisis."" -Wisconsin Bookwatch ""Diamond and Orszag bring some welcome realism and decency to the debate.""-Robert M. Solow, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nobel Laureate in Economics "

Murray presents an argument for a system of social insurance that replaces welfare with a Guaranteed Adequate Income. The book reviews the current public assistance programs, including SSI, AFDC, Unemployment Compensation, and Food Stamps, summarizing the positive aspects and inadequacies of each plan; it also evaluates other plans that have been proposed. A rationale and cost analysis of GAI concludes the book. Written in a non-technical and comprehensible style, the plan is designed to be politically non-partisan and appeal to both liberals and conservatives.

The introduction of Universal Credit arguably stands as the most far-reaching reform so far this century. Clashing Agendas is the traumatic inside story of how this simple concept became unimaginably complicated in execution, and then nearly self-destructed, told by David Freud, who was the Minister for Welfare Reform responsible for the transformation. David's initial welfare proposals in 2007, commissioned by the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in one of his last political initiatives, proved popular across all political parties. When the Conservatives came calling, David Freud accepted the job of reforming the system, initially in the shadow ministerial team and then in Government. His core motivation was to end the welfare trap, by which the legacy systems made it difficult for many people to free themselves from dependency on the state. This personal account reveals the complex interplay between politicians and civil servants - the true determinant of how Government really works. It concludes with his views both on future development of the welfare system and on how the UK Government might organise itself to introduce major system reforms more successfully in future.

How to overcome barriers to the long-term investments that are essential for solving the world's biggest problems There has never been a greater need for long-term investments to tackle the world's most difficult problems, such as climate change, human health, and decaying infrastructure. And it is increasingly unlikely that the public sector will be willing or able to fill this gap. If these critical needs are to be met, the major pools of long-term, patient capital-including pensions, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, and wealthy individuals and families-will have to play a large role. In this accessible and authoritative account of long-term capital investment, two leading experts on the subject, Victoria Ivashina and Josh Lerner, highlight the significant hurdles facing long-term investors and propose concrete ways to overcome these difficulties.

This is a third edition of a successful textbook that provides a contemporary account of how social services in the UK are paid for. The new edition brings the textbook up-to-date with its fast-moving subject area, explaining the finance of human services - health care, education, housing, social security a nd social care-through a review of the economic literature. It also gives an account of how the cash to pay for the services actually reaches schools, hospitals and social service departments, right from the start of the process, examining how government raises taxes, through to allocation of the funds. Both comprehensive and expertly written, this textbook will continue to feature as key reading for a variety of Social and Policy related courses.

A fully revised and rewritten second edition of a book which is now regarded as a classic. Takes full advantage of new research and places strong emphasis on voluntary action and the role of women in the shaping of social policy. It retains the excellent historical perspective that makes it unique among its competitors, comparing recent policy changes to pre-1950 welfare policy.

Housing Policy in Europe provides a comprehensive introduction to the economic, political and social issues of housing across the continent.
The changing policy and practice of housing in fifteen countries from across Northern, Western, Southern and Central Europe are described, analyzed and compared.
The book explains why different systems of tenure are dominant in different groups of countries, and the extent to which housing policies within these countries conform to different welfare systems.
It reveals how owner-occupation has taken over from social housing as the chosen system of tenure and how this reflects a political and economic shift, from social democracy or communism to neo-liberalism across Europe.

Housing Policy in Europe provides a comprehensive introduction to the economic, political and social issues of housing across the continent.
The changing policy and practice of housing in fifteen countries from across Northern, Western, Southern and Central Europe are described, analyzed and compared.
The book explains why different systems of tenure are dominant in different groups of countries, and the extent to which housing policies within these countries conform to different welfare systems.
It reveals how owner-occupation has taken over from social housing as the chosen system of tenure and how this reflects a political and economic shift, from social democracy or communism to neo-liberalism across Europe.

The Economics of Welfare occupies a privileged position in economics. It contributed to the professionalization of economics, a goal aggressively and effectively pursued by Pigou's predecessor and teacher Alfred Marshall. The Economics of Welfare also may be credited with establishing welfare economics, by systematically analyzing market departures and their potential remedies. In writing The Economics of Welfare, Pigou built a bridge between the old and the new economics at Cambridge and in Britain. Much of the book remains relevant for contemporary economics. The list of his analyses that continues to play an important role in economics is impressive. Some of the more important include: public goods and externalities, welfare criteria, index number problems, price discrimination, the theory of the firm, the structure of relief programs for the poor, and public finance. Pigou's discussion of the institutional structure governing labor-market operations in his Wealth and Welfare prompted Schumpeter to call the work "the greatest venture in labor economics ever undertaken by a man who was primarily a theorist." The Economics of Welfare established welfare economics as a field of study. The first part analyzes the relationship between the national dividend and economic and total welfare. Parts II and III link the size of the dividend to the allocation of resources in the economy and the institutional structure governing labor-market operations. Part IV explores the relationship between the national dividend and its distribution. In her new introduction, Nahid Aslanbeigui discusses the life of Pigou and the history of The Economics of Welfare. She also discusses Pigou's theories as expressed in this volume and some of the criticisms those theories have met as well as the impact of those criticisms. The Economics of Welfare is a classic that repays careful study.

The family is currently a controversial topic both within the UK and Europe. While demographic trends seem to suggest that family structures and attitudes within the European Union are converging and that member states are facing similar social problems, their policy responses are very different. This book examines the differences between these national responses and that of the EU as contained in the social chapter. It analyses the key concepts underlying the formulation of family policy and illustrates it with the latest data much of it hitherto unpublished.

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State analyzes recent developments in social and public policy in South Korea. Its focus is the new approach to Korea's system of social protection, known as the productive welfare paradigm. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to examine the new paradigm and associated policy developments. In the first part, contributors examine the significance of the productive welfare paradigm and recent policy developments within a broader comparative and international perspective. They question the commitment to welfare in the paradigm, viewing it largely as an example of a global trend towards the "enabling state" in which social welfare serves largely economic goals. Other contributors situate the new paradigm in relation to globalization and its implications for national strategies of social protection developed in earlier times. The new departure in Korea is compared to European welfare state development, and contributors find it a bold attempt to fashion a comprehensive welfare state based on social rights. In the second part, contributors focus on specific issues and policy areas. These include the degree to which Korea has been following a "pro-poor" growth policy. They evaluate developments in the area of unemployment and work injury insurance. They review the progress of policies in the area of social insurance and assistance, and the American system of income support for low income earners and its lessons for Korean policymakers. Other contributors review the public pensions system in Korea, and environmental protection policies are discussed and the impact of those policies on the poor and people of color, who are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards.

How can we best analyse contemporary welfare state change? And how can we explain and understand the politics of it? This book contributes to these questions both empirically and theoretically by concentrating on one of the least likely cases for welfare state transformation in Europe. It analyzes in detail how and why institutional change has taken Germany's welfare state from a conservative towards a new work-first regime. Christof Schiller introduces a novel analytical framework to make sense of the politics of welfare state transformation by providing the missing link: the capacity of the core executive over time. Examining the policy making process in labour market policy in the period between 1980 and 2010, he identifies three different policy making episodes and analyses their interaction with developments and changes in such policy areas as pension policy, family policy, labour law, tax policy and social assistance. The book advances existing efforts aimed at conceptualizing and measuring welfare state change by proposing a clear-cut conceptualization of social policy regime change and introduces a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of the welfare-work nexus between 1980 and 2010 in Germany. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of social policy, comparative welfare state reform, welfare politics, government, governance, public policy, German politics, European politics, political economy, sociology and history.

This work offers information about the provision of rented housing in several European countries, and includes topics such as policy instruments, social housing issues and affordability. It should be relevant to housing, surveying and planning students courses with a European housing element/option. The text explains the development, financing and management of rented housing in several European countries. It also examines the issues surrounding the provision of social housing - municipal and association housing - in France, Germany and the Netherlands. The book is both policy - and practice - orientated, and offers specific detail and arguments on aspects of rented housing in several countries, as well as information on policy developments.

Residential relocation is the household decision that generates housing consumption changes. It is not merely a decision about changing locations; it is also a decision about tenure--about whether to own or to rent. Research into housing markets has been largely focused on the process of changing from renting to owning, as most countries in the Western world have moved from predominantly rental societies to societies of homeowners.

Households and Housing is designed to demonstrate the interconnections between the housing stock and households. The focus is on understanding the demand for housing and the way in which the demand is fulfilled as households select housing. This book is concerned with both the decision to move one's residence and the resulting type of housing choice. The housing supply--the stock of dwellings--is the context within which households make choices and acquire housing.

The authors use the concepts of life course, housing career, and housing hierarchy to trace the movement of households through the housing market. They paint a comprehensive picture of housing consumption by age, income, and tenure choice, illustrated with nearly 150 figures and tables. US housing market data are contrasted with data from the Netherlands to document the differential effects of government intervention. This is the most up-to-date analysis available on the dynamics of housing choices and housing markets.

Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State investigates political thought under the conditions of the postwar welfare state, focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1989). The volume argues that the welfare state informed and altered basic questions of democracy and its relationship to capitalism. These questions were especially important for West Germany, given its recent experience with the collapse of capitalism, the disintegration of democracy, and National Socialist dictatorship after 1930. Three central issues emerged. First, the development of a nearly all-embracing set of social services and payments recast the problem of how social groups and interests related to the state, as state agencies and affected groups generated their own clientele, their own advocacy groups, and their own expert information. Second, the welfare state blurred the line between state and society that is constitutive of basic rights and the classic world of liberal freedom; rights became claims on the state, and social groups became integral parts of state administration. Third, the welfare state potentially reshaped the individual citizen, who became wrapped up with mandatory social insurance systems, provisioning of money and services related to social needs, and the regulation of everyday life. Peter C. Caldwell describes how West German experts sought to make sense of this vast array of state programs, expenditures, and bureaucracies aimed at solving social problems. Coming from backgrounds in politics, economics, law, social policy, sociology, and philosophy, they sought to conceptualize their state, which was now social (one German word for the welfare state is indeed Sozialstaat), and their society, which was permeated by state policies.

Christian democracy has been one of the most successful political movements in post-war Western Europe yet its crucial impact on the development of the modern European welfare state has been neglected. In this study, Kees van Kersbergen demonstrates the precise nature of the links between Christian democracy and the welfare state. Using a variety of sources the author describes the origin and development of the Christian Democratic movement and presents comparative accounts of the varying degrees of political entrenchment of national Christian Democratic parties. Drawing upon cross-national indicators of welfare state development he identifies and explains the existence of a distinctively Christian Democratic (as opposed to a liberal or social democratic) welfare-state regime which he labels "social capitalism".

The modern welfare state is indeed one of the greatest achievements of the post-war 20th century. With its key aims of eradicating the five giant social ills of Want, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor and Idleness, it aimed to providing a minimum standard of living, with all people of working age paying a weekly contribution; in return, benefits would be paid to anyone who was sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. The modern welfare state, therefore, is about maintaining a delicate equilibrium between dependent social groups on the one hand and the active working classes on the other. In the case of old-age security, this balance is being achieved (or not) by the so-called Generation Contract. This social pact is more of an implicit, unwritten and unspecified social contract. This ground-breaking book demonstrates how countries are addressing population-ageing challenges in depth, using the case study of Austria to gain the required complexity and differentiation in a comparative European framework of empirical evidence. This is a broad social science study in political economy and sociology, not an economic analysis. Though focusing on pensions, it centres on the (im)balance between work and non-work, issues of health, work ability, employability, and benefit receipt from old-age security to disability allowance. It will be required reading for all sociologists and social policy experts and academics working within this area.

This title was first published in 2000: This volume is based on papers presented at the sixth International Research Seminar on "Issues in Social Security", held by FISS on 12-15 June 1999 in Sigtuna, Sweden. The book relates to the discussion about the merits of improving the incentive structure of social security programmes by privatization. The first part contains two important chapters - the first looks at the interaction between programmes and how they make one of them to serve the purposes of the other. This mechanism is termed "domain linkage". The second chapter deals with welfare state programmes that contain behavioural risks, like health insurance, sickness benefits, unemployment and disability insurance - where moral hazard is a potential problem. The second part of the book groups a number of international comparative studies. The first three deal with retirement issues, and the fourth looks at the development of poverty and income distribution.

All too often the experience of users of family therapy is neglected in the theory and practice of family therapy as well as in the literature itself. In Introducing User-Friendly Family Therapy the authors describe in detail how the results of an action research project helped the professionals involved to modify their practice. They draw out the implications of the research for providing a genuinely user-friendly service and set the arguments for a more humanistic approach in the wider context of contemporary social policy.
Thought-provoking and practical in emphasis, this book places the user at the centre of the stage and insists that family therapy can only flourish if it becomes genuinely empowering and user-friendly.

This title was first published in 2002: When a developer wants to realize a housing scheme, what can the local planning authority do to assure that the resulting residential environment is of a high quality? This book explores the question through a cross-national comparison of housing development processes in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. It analyzes how decisions about the residential environment are made in different situations, and by whom. By applying this analysis to housing development processes in different countries, the book paints a picture of how public policy and market mechanisms together influence the development of housing. From this, conclusions are drawn about how local planning authorities can achieve their objectives concerning the quality of housing areas.

Jim Kemeny develops a conceptual framework to present a critical study of comparative rental markets. The framework centres around the concept of the process of maturation of cost rental housing and two policies for handling this which have been adopted by industrial societies. These are, firstly, the Anglo-Saxon "dualist" system, seen in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and secondly, the Germanic "unitary market" system, seen in Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. Using a comparative approach based around international case studies, Jim Kemeny shows how each system stems from different power structures, is governed by different policy strategies, and is informed by different ideological views of how markets operate. Offering a radical critique of the orthodox view, it is argued that the time is now right for English-speaking nations to abandon state control over cost renting but allow to it to compete directly with profit renting, as in the "unitary market" model. International in scope, this volume should be of interest to researchers in housing, sociology and related fields.

This book explores the contribution of women to the development of housing management in the 20th century. It outlines tactics and strategies of organization and factors which have seemed to help or hinder women's participation in housing. Evidence from statistical sources, historical documents and personal interviews is also assessed. Throughout the discussion, key issues are linked to current trends in the 1990s, making this volume suitable as a source of reference for students and researchers in housing and related fields.

Explores the impact of policy on specific groups of women and the role that they play as both tenants and managers in shpaing a service and housing design around their particular needs.

The 'Golden Age' of the welfare state in Europe was characterised by a strengthening of social rights as citizens became increasingly protected through the collective provision of income security and social services. The oil crisis, inflation and high unemployment of the 1970s largely saw the end of welfare expansion with critical voices claiming the welfare state had created an unbalanced focus on the social rights of individuals, above their responsibilities as citizens. During the 1980s many western countries developed contractual modes of thinking and regulation within welfare policy. Contractualism has proved a significant organising principle for public reforms in general, and for social policy reforms in particular as it embraces both a way of justifying certain welfare policies and of constructing specific socio-legal policy instruments. Engaging with both the critique of the welfare state and the subsequent policy responses, expert contributors in this book examine contractualism as a discourse, comprising principles and justifying ideas, and as a legal and social practice. Covering the international debate on conditionality they discuss European experiences with active social citizenship ideas and contractualism providing individual case studies and comparisons from a wide range of European countries.

This chronology explores the development of housing in the United States from the arrival of the first settlers through the present day. It traces America's growth from its rural beginnings to its present suburban sprawl and discusses how the nation has dealt with the three major issues of housing development: water supply, sanitation and, to a continually decreasing degree, defense. Additional topics include the effects of technological advances in the field of transportation; the influence of political issues such as the Civil War (especially emancipation); the entry of the government into housing finance; and the continued influx of immigrants.