Exploring Convergence in some OECD Public Social Expenditure Trends

De Simone, Elina and Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio and Ercolano, Salvatore (2010): Exploring Convergence in some OECD Public Social Expenditure Trends.

Abstract

Triggered by the phenomenon of globalisation, during recent years there has been a process of State policy rationalisation in the social expenditure domain; hence the debate over the present role and dimension of welfare state has intensified. Following on the extensive multidisciplinary literature on this issue, the purpose of this paper is two-fold 1) to apply a more traditional analysis of convergence (sigma and beta convergence) in public social expenditures and 2) to analyse public social expenditure allocation expressed as a % of GDP and derive a possible classification of the countries by means of a multivariate approach. We conclude by explaining some similarities in the expenditure behaviour of certain countries in terms of the policy transfer process. Our results can be interpreted as a further contribution to the literature on contemporary public policy evaluation in the welfare domain.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Policy Making, Welfare Programme, Public social Expenditures, Policy Transfer, principal component analysis, cluster analysis
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H50 - General; H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D78 - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

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