International Levels of Employee Benefits. An Exploratory Study: Comment

Abstract

I have read with considerable interest Mark R. Greene's article on employee benefit practices abroad.' While the data contained in Professor Greene's study are useful, the study itself nevertheless contains weaknesses that detract from its merit. And these weaknesses mean that wrong inferences could be drawn from the article by anyone not an experienced international employee benefit analyst. Although he concedes that employee benefit practices abroad differ widely, Professor Greene lumps together all foreign countries, disregarding such factors as geographical location, degree of economic development, employee benefit plan tradition, and socio-political philosophy. But the plain truth is that foreign countriesin particular, countries as diverse as those covered by this study-cannot be so simply categorized together. In their various approaches to benefits, the highly industrialized countries of the European Common Market are themselves anything but monolithic; and as a group they differ enormously in benefit practices from countries elsewhere in the world, especially from the developing countries of Latin American and Asia. Then, for the purpose of establishing genuine statistical trends, the number of