Public Welfare Expenditures Research Articles

Neoliberalism and Child Protection: A Deadly Mix

The impact of neoliberal policies in a department charged with protecting the most vulnerable members of our society, and those who are most at risk of slipping into poverty is examined. The consequences of the outsourcing of public welfare to the charitable sector and associated reductions in public welfare expenditure are explored in detail. The Department of Community Services (DoCS) is an illustration of the manner in which the negative effects of neoliberal policies persist through familial poverty and increased child abuse notifications - long after these policies have been softened and funding has been restored. This arises in part from the State Government having responsibility for operational delivery of Government Services, whilst the Federal Government has charge of macro-economic policies. Even though state funding for services increases under the Carr Labor Government, the demand for welfare services continues to escalate a consequence of Federal policies which dramatically increase the number of Australian households living below the poverty line. Comparisons are drawn between the 'hard neoliberalism' practiced by the NSW Coalition Governments and the 'soft neoliberalism/social conservatism' of the NSW Labor Governments. It is argued that the Carr Government engaged in soft neoliberalism, as it retained a contracted senior executive service, supported accommodation programs remained outsourced to the private sector and managerial systems of individually focused investigative processes were applied to DoCs staff.

Healthy, educated and wealthy: A primer on the impact of public and private welfare expenditures on economic growth

In this paper, we provide first evidence of the impact of public and private expenditures in health and education on economic growth, via their influence on people's health, skills and knowledge. We consider a growth accounting framework in order to test whether countries that devote a larger amount of resources to the consumption of health and educational services experience higher growth rates. We also test whether the effects on economic growth of public expenditure in health and education differ from those of private expenditure. Our empirical analysis is based on a panel of 19 OECD countries observed between 1971 and 1998. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that health and education expenditure affects positively growth. The estimated impact is stronger for health than for education. More importantly, we find some evidence that public expenditure influences GDP growth more than private expenditure.

A regional analysis of openness and government size

The effects of international trade have been studied primarily from the perspective of a nation, often overlooking the more direct effects that occur on a regional or state level. Studies have illustrated the relationship between international trade and openness to the size of a nation's government as well as to specific categories of government spending. Because the United States retains strong state governments it is important to correlate openness with government size at the state level. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether increased state openness has resulted in state governments responding to the increased international trade activity by offering greater social protection. It is found that both public welfare and health services expenditures are positively correlated with the level of a state's openness. This suggests that US states have had to respond to the adverse effects of increased international trade activity.

Omitted-Variables Bias when Using State Tax Rates to Estimate the Tax Price Effect on Itemized Deductions

The use of state tax rates to provide a source of variation in the tax price of deductible goods and services may lead to biased estimates if other important state characteristics are not held constant. Omitting public welfare expenditures and religious membership is found to have little effect on the estimated price elasticity of charitable contributions. In contrast, the sensitivity of interest deductions to tax rate (price) changes is overstated when state differences in housing market characteristics are ignored.

THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN FAMILY LIFE: STATES' AFDC PAYMENTS AND DIVORCE RATES IN THE UNITED STATES

An earlier examination of the relationship between states' per capita expenditures for public welfare and their divorce rates found no relationship between the two for observations prior to 1985. However in 1985, the two were related, states' public welfare expenditures being inversely predictive of their divorce rates: the less states' spent for public welfare, the higher their divorce rates, and conversely, the more they spent, the lower their divorce rates. Translated, this meant that family life was less stable in states that did less to support family life and more stable in states that did more to support family life. This finding is important because of the wide‐spread belief that government social programs undermine family life and foster family break‐up.

Determinants of states' welfare expenditures

Regression analysis is used to “explain” public welfare expenditures by states from 1946 through 1987. Explanatory variables include the need for public assistance, taxpayer willingness to provide aid, the level of economic activity, categorical welfare grants to state governments, the method of assuming the financial burden of providing for public welfare and partisanship. The group of explanatory factors collectively accounts for virtually all of the variation of the dependent variable, while permitting tests for a variety of hypotheses.

Determinants of state public welfare expenditures: an analytical survey

Determinants of state public welfare expenditures: an analytical survey

State Level Public Policy Choices as Predictors of State Teen Birthrates

The findings of this study confirm that there is a relationship between US state level policy choices and teen birth rates. The predictors of state teen birth rates--high poverty rates low school completion rates low public welfare expenditures and high unemployment rates--are depictive of opportunity structures devoid of opportunities or reasons for hoping for a better future. This is compounded by low expenditures for both education and public welfare which are directly linked to the low school completion rates and high poverty rates that are so strongly predictive of high teen birth rates. These findings are consistent with those of other studies conducted throughout the world for 25 years or longer that also have shown an association between high birth rates low levels of educational attainment and high rates of poverty and unemployment. The role that state level policy choices play in this configuration is depicted statistically in the present analysis. All of this suggests that family professionals have a very strong advocacy role to play in their respective states and nationally as well in changing attitudes that underlie states spending choices and the federal governments too in terms of the costs that high teen birth rates entail. Counseling family life and sex education family planning services although important are insufficient for addressing the underlying conditions with which high teen birth rates are associated: poverty and low levels of education and aspirations for it. To address such conditions opportunity structures must be created in the states and communities in which poor teenagers live.

Public Welfare Expenditure in OECD Countries: Towards a Reconciliation of Inconsistent Findings

In this paper some of the reasons for inconsistent findings on the determinants of welfare expenditure and outcome in the advanced capitalist countries are examined. Particular attention is paid to the work of Harold Wilensky and John Stephens on the grounds that their research illustrates some key methodological and theoretical differences in this field. Several problems of conceptualization and measurement in their work are identified. Hypotheses are derived from their work and tested against data on seventeen OECD countries at five time points from 1960 to 1980. The conclusion is drawn that inconsistent findings in the field derive from different conceptualizations and operationalizations of key terms and, more fundamentally, from different conceptions of the welfare state.

The Significance of Motivational Variables in International Public Welfare Expenditures: A Reply

The Significance of Motivational Variables in International Public Welfare Expenditures: A Reply

The Significance of Motivational Variables in International Public Welfare Expenditures: A Comment

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Significance of Motivational Variables in International Public Welfare Expenditures: A CommentFriedel BolleFriedel Bolle Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 36, Number 2Jan., 1988 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/451658 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1988 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:James M. Carman Theories of A1Truism and Behavior Modification Campaigns, Journal of Macromarketing 12, no.11 (Sep 2016): 5–18.https://doi.org/10.1177/027614679201200102FRIEDEL BOLLE On Love and Altruism, Rationality and Society 3, no.22 (Nov 2016): 197–214.https://doi.org/10.1177/1043463191003002004

States' public welfare expenditures as predictors of state suicide rates.

This exploratory multiple-regression study took its cue from social integration theory to examine the relative importance of state per capita expenditures for public welfare in predicting state suicide rates when controlling for the effects of state divorce rates, state population change rates, and the percentage of persons with annual incomes between $10,000 and $19,999. While the four variables together accounted for .73 of the explained variance in state suicide rates, the effects of state per capita expenditures for public welfare were not very important when those of the other variables were taken into account. This, however, does not mean that state per capita expenditures for public welfare are inconsequential with respect to state suicide rates, inasmuch as they were inversely related to each of the other three independent variables, each of which was positively related to state suicide rates. This means that state per capita expenditures are indirectly related to suicide--in a negative direction. The implications of the findings for policy and suicide prevention are briefly discussed.

Theories of the Welfare State

In the post-World War II era the apparent success of Keynesian economic principles in evening out the instabilities of the business cycle stimulated rapid growth in public welfare expenditures in Western capitalist democracies. For social science, welfare state expansion was not a puzzle but a given. When the economic crisis of the 1970s undermined faith in permanent and sustained growth in welfare programs, the new agenda for social theory concentrated upon the conditions that hindered or favored development. Ironically, both neo-Marxists and conservative economists reached the same conclusion: Welfare programs undermined profitability. The first half of this paper traces these theoretical developments, both in relation to internal debates among social scientists and in regard to external social and economic conditions that shaped the context of theorizing about the welfare state. Underlying the broader debates about the factors influencing welfare state development has been a more specific concern with the exceptionalism of the American welfare state. Here the central agenda has been to explain why the United States was late in developing national welfare programs and why the programs that did arise contained a bifurcated structure that separated benefits for the poor from those available to all citizens as a right. Three explanations have emerged: the failure of organized labor, the legacy of American politics and the dualism of the American economy. This paper critically assesses the theoretical relevance of these arguments and their implications for recent attacks on benefit programs.

Public Benefits and Costs of Government Funding for Abortion

In state referenda to end public funding of abortions for poor women, one of the most successful tactics of abortion foes has been to charge that abortion funding increases the burden on taxpayers. A state-by-state analysis by The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) shows that the opposite is the case. For every tax dollar spent to pay for abortions for poor women, about four dollars is saved in public medical and welfare expenditures. The savings are in public expenditures that otherwise would have to be incurred because of the babies that poor women would have borne. On the basis of earlier research, it was assumed that 20 percent of Medicaid-eligible women who could not obtain abortions would give birth. Public costs examined in the AGI analysis include Medicaid expenditures for prenatal care, delivery and postnatal care for the mother, and for newborn care, neonatal intensive care and pediatric care for the child for the first two years of life; as well as expenditures for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps and the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) during those first two years. The benefit-to-cost ratio varies from about 9:1 in Massachusetts to 2:1 in Hawaii and Pennsylvania. The net savings for the nation as a whole over a two-year period if abortions were publicly funded in every state would total at least $339.6 million.

The Significance of Motivational Variables in International Public Welfare Expenditures

In his comment on my article,' Friedel Bolle makes a number of criticisms concerning my model and analyses, and he attempts to build a new model. This reply responds to each criticism and provides a critique of his new model. Bolle criticizes my model on the basis that the altruist A's utility is maximized subject to the constraint that the utility of the selfish individual S is constant; that is, the model is not dynamic. However, my model does not preclude a change in indifference maps over time. For example, some cultural change may occur that would alter the personality types of the individuals involved. In that case, the value of S's utility could be different in this different state. However, it must be noted that it would still be constant, but only at a different level. It is only possible to analyze one social state at a time and determine the optimal solution. Bolle points out that if the constant value of S's utility is sufficiently low, then negative transfers could be required. It should be noted, however, that even though the solution is in the negative region, mathematically speaking, it is still an optimum. For all of utility theory, this is going to be the case. However, for practical purposes, the model should have been limited to positive transfers. It should also be pointed out that the altruist's transfers to the selfish individual are restricted by what the selfish individual wants to receive. In each case, the altruist is doing the best he can in his giving to the selfish person. Bolle states that it is not clear that XAST = XsT is the relevant variable; otherwise Fi would not appear in her equations (3), (4), and (5). Bolle seems to be arguing that goods that are received in the form of a transfer have different utility than the same goods that are one's own goods. I must argue that, apart from the psychological effect of

The Impact of Socialism on Work Stoppages

SummaryThe impact of socialism on work stoppages in 15 industrialized countries for the years 1956–1965 was tested using three measures of socialism: (1) the proportion of tangible wealth owned by the state, (2) the ratio of public welfare expenditures to gross national product, and (3) whether or not the socislist party was in power. Results of the analyses performed show that socialism a p peared to have little impact on work stoppage rates among the countries.