Social investment in the knowledge-based economy: new politics and policies

ABSTRACT This themed issue entitled Social Investment in the Knowledge-Based Economy aims to investigate desirable policy packages of social investment for the knowledge-based economy, the interactions between policy and economic inequality, and political and institutional configurations that shape policies. This introduction to our themed issue situates the contribution of the volume in the literature, summarizes the main findings and their implications, and identifies core issues for a future research agenda. We trace the development of the social investment approach over time and across regions, and we explain its logic and the accumulated evidence supporting its importance. We then link our contributions squarely to the transition to the knowledge economy and the concern with innovation, growth, and inequality. We summarize the policy lessons emerging from the individual articles which emphasize specifically the need to treat social investment as complementary to social protection. We also summarize the insights into the politics of generating support coalitions for the introduction of effective social investment policies, emphasizing the leadership role of political parties in shaping both public preferences and legislation. Finally, we outline some key unanswered questions, among them questions regarding the obstacles to major progress in social investment so far and the impact of immigration and party system fragmentation on future progress.

[1]  K. Armingeon,et al.  How Redistributive Policies Reduce Market Inequality: Education Premiums in 22 OECD Countries , 2020 .

[2]  Pensions at a Glance 2019 , 2019, OECD Pensions at a Glance.

[3]  D. Stegmueller,et al.  Who Wants What? , 2019 .

[4]  R. Mahon.  Broadening the social investment agenda: The OECD, the World Bank and inclusive growth , 2019, Global Social Policy.

[5]  The Future of Social Protection , 2018 .

[6]  The Productivity-Inclusiveness Nexus , 2018 .

[7]  G. Bonoli,et al.  Good intentions and Matthew effects: access biases in participation in active labour market policies , 2018, The Future of the Social Investment State.

[8]  M. Busemeyer,et al.  Public demand for social investment: new supporting coalitions for welfare state reform in Western Europe? , 2018, The Future of the Social Investment State.

[9]  Marius R. Busemeyer,et al.  Investing in education in Europe: Evidence from a new survey of public opinion , 2018 .

[10]  Raj Chetty,et al.  Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation , 2017, The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

[11]  G. Friedman.  The Rise and fall of American growth: the US standard of living since the Civil War , 2017 .

[12]  Paola Subacchi,et al.  The rise and fall of American growth: the US standard of living since the Civil War , 2017 .

[13]  Christopher Pierson.  Book Review: Claudia Chwalisz and Patrick Diamond (eds), The Predistribution Agenda: Tackling Inequality and Supporting Sustainable Growth , 2017 .

[14]  C. Saraceno.  Varieties of familialism: Comparing four southern European and East Asian welfare regimes , 2016 .

[15]  Hanna Schwander,et al.  Sharing the Risk? Households, Labor Market Vulnerability, and Social Policy Preferences in Western Europe , 2016, The Journal of Politics.

[16]  Frederick Guy,et al.  Skills and social insurance: Evidence from the relative persistence of innovation during the financial crisis in Europe , 2016 .

[17]  B. Palier,et al.  WOPSI - The World Politics of Social Investment , 2016 .

[18]  Marshall Reinsdorf,et al.  Does the United States Have a Productivity Slowdown or a Measurement Problem? , 2016 .

[19]  Mariagrazia Squicciarini,et al.  Routine jobs, employment and technological innovation in global value chains , 2016 .

[20]  C. Anderson,et al.  Happiness and the Welfare State : decommodification and the political economy of subjective well-being , 2015 .

[21]  Hanspeter Kriesi,et al.  The Politics of Advanced Capitalism , 2015 .

[22]  P. Smyth,et al.  Social Investment after Neoliberalism: Policy Paradigms and Political Platforms , 2014, Journal of Social Policy.

[23]  Marius R. Busemeyer.  Skills and inequality: partisan politics and the political economy of education reforms in Western welfare states , 2014 .

[24]  P. Horák,et al.  Innovation in Social Services: The Public-Private Mix in Service Provision, Fiscal Policy and Employment , 2014 .

[25]  E. Pavolini,et al.  ‘Social Investment’ or Back to ‘Familism’: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Family and Care Policies in Italy and Spain , 2014 .

[26]  Lauren J. Probert.  Making Markets in the Welfare State: The Politics of Varying Market Reforms By Jane R. Gingrich Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 978‐1‐10‐700462‐7; £58.00 (hbk). , 2014 .

[27]  I. Peng.  The Social Protection Floor and the ‘New’ social investment policies in Japan and South Korea , 2014 .

[28]  E. Huber,et al.  Income inequality and redistribution in post-industrial democracies: demographic, economic and political determinants , 2014 .

[29]  V. Lapuente,et al.  Lower levels of inequality are linked with greater innovation in economies , 2014 .

[30]  Josef Hien.  Unsecular Politics in a Secular Environment: The Case of Germany's Christian Democratic Union Family Policy , 2013 .

[31]  B. Nolan.  What use is ‘social investment’? , 2013 .

[32]  Daniel Oesch.  Occupational Change in Europe , 2013 .

[33]  Barbara Meil Hobson.  Worklife Balance: The Agency and Capabilities Gap , 2013 .

[34]  J. Clasen,et al.  Regulating the Risk of Unemployment: National Adaptations To Post-Industrial Labour Markets In Europe , 2013 .

[35]  P. Vanhuysse.  Intergenerational Justice in Aging Societies: A Cross-National Comparison of 29 OECD Countries , 2013 .

[36]  A. Wren.  The Political Economy of the Service Transition , 2013 .

[37]  Reijo Miettinen,et al.  Innovation, Human Capabilities, and Democracy: Towards an Enabling Welfare State , 2013 .

[38]  Kimberly J Morgan.  Path Shifting of the Welfare State: Electoral Competition and the Expansion of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe , 2013 .

[39]  M. Souto-Otero.  Neo-liberalism and continuing vocational training governance in the UK: an examination of three theoretical accounts , 2013 .

[40]  Amanda M. Girth,et al.  Outsourcing Public Service Delivery: Management Responses in Noncompetitive Markets , 2012 .

[41]  Ben W. Ansell,et al.  Preferences in Context , 2012 .

[42]  M. Warner,et al.  Contracting or Public Delivery? The Importance of Service, Market and Management Characteristics , 2012 .

[43]  Marek Naczyk,et al.  Shifting the Public-Private Mix , 2012 .

[44]  B. Cantillon.  The paradox of the social investment state: growth, employment and poverty in the Lisbon era , 2011 .

[45]  Kimberly J Morgan.  Promoting social investment through work–family policies: which nations do it and why? , 2011 .

[46]  Joakim Palme,et al.  Towards a social investment welfare state? : Ideas, policies and challenges , 2011 .

[47]  J. Jenson.  Diffusing Ideas for After Neoliberalism , 2010 .

[48]  S. McDaniel.  Gøsta Esping-Andersen, Incomplete Revolution: Adapting Welfare States to Women’s New Roles , 2010 .

[49]  K. Thelen,et al.  Institutionalizing Dualism: Complementarities and Change in France and Germany , 2010 .

[50]  J. Jenson.  Lost in Translation: The Social Investment Perspective and Gender Equality , 2009 .

[51]  M. Seeleib-Kaiser,et al.  The Political Economy of Occupational Family Policies: Comparing Workplaces in Britain and Germany , 2009 .

[52]  Torben Iversen,et al.  Distribution and Redistribution: The Shadow of the Nineteenth Century , 2009 .

[53]  Carolina Castaldi,et al.  Do ‘liberal market economies’ really innovate more radically than ‘coordinated market economies’?: Hall and Soskice reconsidered , 2009 .

[54]  Susan M. Gates,et al.  Is Employer-Based Health Insurance a Barrier to Entrepreneurship? , 2008, Journal of health economics.

[55]  Torben Iversen,et al.  Partisan Politics, the Welfare State, and Three Worlds of Human Capital Formation , 2008 .

[56]  Nathan Rosenberg,et al.  Designing Efficient Institutions for Science-Based Entrepreneurship: Lesson from the US and Sweden , 2007 .

[57]  T. Mkandawire,et al.  Transformative Social Policy and Innovation in Developing Countries , 2007, Promoting Innovation, Productivity and Industrial Growth and Reducing Poverty.

[58]  Herbert P. Kitschelt,et al.  New social risk and political preferences , 2007 .

[59]  J. Lynch.  Age in the Welfare State: The Origins of Social Spending on Pensioners, Workers, and Children , 2006 .

[60]  W. Nordhaus,et al.  Baumol's Diseases: A Macroeconomic Perspective , 2006 .

[61]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  Developing Theory Through Simulation Methods , 2006 .

[62]  Mildred E. Warner,et al.  Privatization and Its Reverse: Explaining the Dynamics of the Government Contracting Process , 2004 .

[63]  P. Blomqvist.  The Choice Revolution: Privatization of Swedish Welfare Services in the 1990s , 2004 .

[64]  S. Nickell.  Poverty and Worklessness in Britain , 2004 .

[65]  David M. Van Slyke,et al.  The Mythology of Privatization in Contracting for Social Services , 2003 .

[66]  Mike Fletcher,et al.  The European Innovation Scoreboard , 2003 .

[67]  K. Thelen.  How Institutions Evolve: Contents , 2003 .

[68]  Gøsta Esping-Andersen,et al.  A Child‐Centred Social Investment Strategy , 2002 .

[69]  R. Denhardt,et al.  The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering , 2000 .

[70]  Pamela Brandes,et al.  Privatization in Emerging Economies: An Agency Theory Perspective , 2000 .

[71]  E. Huber,et al.  Partisan Governance, Women's Employment, and the Social Democratic Service State , 2000, American Sociological Review.

[72]  R. Sills,et al.  The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy , 1999 .

[73]  W. Korpi,et al.  The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries , 1998 .

[74]  Paul M. Romer,et al.  The Origins of Endogenous Growth , 1994 .

[75]  G. Macleod.  Does Creativity Lead to Happiness and More Enjoyment of Life , 1973 .

[76]  L. Soete.  Destructive Creation: explaining the productivity paradox in the digital age , 2018 .

[77]  A. Hemerijck.  The Uses of Social Investment , 2017 .

[78]  B. Burgoon.  Practical Pluralism in the Empirical Study of Social Investment : Examples from Active Labour-Market Policy , 2017 .

[79]  Michael A. Osborne,et al.  The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? , 2017 .

[80]  B. Cantillon,et al.  Social investment and the Matthew effect : limits to a strategy , 2017 .

[81]  H. Wollmann,et al.  Public and Social Services in Europe , 2016 .

[82]  Riccardo Prandini,et al.  Social Investment in Times of Crisis: A Quiet Revolution or a Shaken Welfare Capitalism? , 2016 .

[83]  E. Huber,et al.  Predistribution and Redistribution: Alternative or Complementary Policies? , 2015 .

[84]  Ingrid Esser.  Looking to the Nordics? The Swedish Social Investment Model in View of 2030 , 2015 .

[85]  A. Manning,et al.  Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring , 2014 .

[86]  M. O'Neill.  The Promise of Predistribution , 2012 .

[87]  P. Emmenegger,et al.  The age of dualization : the changing face of inequality in deindustrializing societies , 2012 .

[88]  B. Lundvall,et al.  Social investment in the globalizing learning economy: a European perspective , 2011 .

[89]  Mathias Urban,et al.  Competence Requirements in Early Childhood Education and Care (CoRe) , 2011 .

[90]  J. Clasen,et al.  The Transformation of Unemployment Protection in Europe , 2011 .

[91]  E. Hanushek,et al.  The role of cognitive skills in economic development , 2008 .

[92]  Ludger Woessmann,et al.  STANFORD CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Working Paper No . 376 Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth ? Cognitive Skills , Economic Outcomes , and Causation , 2008 .

[93]  Lawrence F. Katz,et al.  The Race Between Education And Technology , 2008 .

[94]  S. Page.  The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies , 2007 .

[95]  K. Armingeon,et al.  The Politics of Post-Industrial Welfare States : Adapting Post-War Social Policies to New Social Risks , 2006 .

[96]  J. Lynch.  Age in the Welfare State: Index , 2006 .

[97]  R. Jessop.  Varieties of Capitalism. , 2006 .

[98]  M. Kohli,et al.  Do intergenerational transfers from elderly parents increase social inequality among their middle-aged children? Evidence from the German aging survey. , 2005, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[99]  G. Esping‐Andersen,et al.  Why We Need A New Welfare State , 2002 .

[100]  Robin S Stryker,et al.  Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets , 2001 .

[101]  Jan-Erik Lane,et al.  Public sector reform : rationale, trends and problems , 1997 .

[102]  K. Kersbergen.  Social Capitalism: A Study of Christian Democracy and the Welfare State , 1995 .

[103]  G. Esping‐Andersen,et al.  The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism , 1990 .

[104]  E. Albrecht.  [Social capitalism]. , 1952, Deutsches medizinisches Journal.

[105]  D. Acemoglu,et al.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Economics Working Paper Series Can't We All Be More like Scandinavians? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World? Can't We All Be More like Scandinavians? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World , 2022 .