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Print Price: $46.50

Format:
Paperback
264 pp.
Numerous tables and figures, 138 mm x 216 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199286102

Publication date:
November 2005

Imprint: OUP UK

Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe

A World of Difference

Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser

As events highlight deep divisions in attitudes between America and Europe, this is a very timely study of different approaches to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty.

Based on careful and systematic analysis of national data, the authors describe just how much the two continents differ in their level of State engagement in the redistribution of income. Discussing various possible economic explanations for the difference, they cover different levels of pre-tax income, openness, and social mobility; they survey politico-historical differences such as the varying physical size of nations, their electoral and legal systems, and the character of their political parties, as well as their experiences of war; and they examine sociological explanations, which include different attitudes to the poor and notions of social responsibility. Most importantly, they address attitudes to race, calculating that attitudes to race explain half the observed difference in levels of public redistribution of income.

This important and provocative analysis will captivate academic and serious lay readers in economics and welfare systems.

Readership : Academic and serious lay readers in economics and political economy

Reviews

`... remarkable book ... Mr Alesina and Mr Glaeser, both Harvard economists, are doing what the best in their profession do well these days: seeking to explain society not merely with conventional economic tools but with
analysis of institutions, geography and social behaviour.'
The Economist 12 March 2004
`In what ways, and why, are the United States and Europe so far apart in social policy? Alesina and Glaeser give us as definitive an answer to this fundamental question as we shall ever see.'
George A. Akerlof, Nobel Prize Laureate
`This probing of the forces behind 'American exceptionalism', as measured by a much smaller welfare state than in Europe, is immensely important. The authors take a multi-discipline approach and consider many factors, including narrowly economic variables, political institutions, racial and ethnic diversity, the effects of wars, attitudes toward the
poor, and still others. Their findings are sometimes surprising and frequently provocative. This monograph will
quickly become the foundation of further literature on a subject of enormous significance.'
Gary S. Becker, Nobel Prize Laureate

1. Introduction
2. Redistribution in the United Sates and Europe: the data
3. Economic explanations
4. Political institutions and redistribution
5. The origin of political institutions
6. Race and redistribution
7. The Ideology of Redistribution
8. Conclusions
Index

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Alberto Alesina is Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy and currently Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, and has been Visiting Professor at IGIER-Bocconi and MIT. He is a Research Associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research and for the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He is Co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and in addition to his many books and papers he has published columns in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal Europe, Le Monde, Il Sole 24 Ore, La Stampa, Frankfurter Zeitung, and Handelsblatt, and many other newspapers nationwide. Edward L. Glaeser is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1992. He teaches urban and social economics and microeconomic theory, and has published dozens of papers on cities, economic growth, and law and economics. He is a Faculty Research Fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, and has also been a consultant for numerous international international institutions.

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Special Features

Concise, multidisciplinary, and timely study of the differences between the US and Europe's welfare systems
Written by top-notch economists drawing on in-depth original research
Provocative analysis of attitudes, to race in particular, and their effect on welfare systems