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This chapter discusses Social Security reform in Canada in 1996-7. It argues that the C/QPP reforms of 1997 gave merely tweaks to the system as opposed to massive change, with most of the amendments subtle and not fully understood by the average Canadian citizen. These reforms were made without apparent opposition, which is somewhat surprising given that contribution rates were raised from 6 to 9.9% over a short 6-year period. The failure of the Seniors Benefit in 1996 was political, not actuarial. The government failed to understand how popular the OAS was and how emotional the response would be to proposed reforms given the very small- and long-deferred savings that were projected to result. The Canadian social security system today provides Canadians with a high level of income security while leaving ample room for individual savings and investments. The reforms of 1997 have meant that the CPP now rests on a healthy foundation. The latest CPP actuarial report shows that this system is sustainable for at least the next seventy-five years.

This chapter analyzes the risks and rewards of moving from an unfunded defined benefit pension system to a funded plan for civil servants in Germany, allowing for alternative portfolio mixes using a Monte Carlo framework and a Conditional Value at Risk metric. The authors identify an investment strategy for plan assets that will minimize worst-case pension costs; this turns out to be 22 percent in equities, 47 percent in bonds, and 31 percent in real estate. The authors show that moving toward a funded pension system for German civil servants can be beneficial to both taxpayers and civil servants.

The recent rise in inequality in the distribution of disposable income in many, although not all, countries has led to a search for explanations, particularly since for much of the postwar period falling income inequality has been the norm. In the OECD countries, on which this chapter concentrates, the cause has been identified as rising wage dispersion, coupled with persistent unemployment in Europe. However, a number of factors need to be brought into any explanation of the extent and timing of changes in income distribution, including movements in factor shares, changes in real interest rates, and the impact of the government budget. This chapter focusses on the last of these. It has five sections: Introduction; Redistributive Impact of the Government Budget in selected OECD countries—a review of the statistical evidence from five OECD countries where a time series of studies covering the 1980s and the 1990s is available (UK, Canada, West Germany, Finland, Sweden; The Government Budget in Principle and Policy Reaction to Demographic Shifts—a simple framework within which the distributional implications of different government policy responses to changes in economic conditions and the different elements influencing the choice of response are explored; Policy Changes in Redistributive Taxes and Transfers: Case Studies of Unemployment Benefit and Personal Taxation—in the five European countries already studied, and in the US; and Summary of Conclusions.

To accord with the principle of consumer sovereignty, a first requirement is that where government funding is used, the choice of projects must required some method of eliciting individual preferences as reflected in the political decision making process. This entails some way of identifying and measuring costs and benefits of individual projects which takes account of both private and social benefits and costs. Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is commonly used both as a method for identifying which projects are admissible as providing positive net benefits and for choosing between alternative projects. Technical difficulties abound in using CBA, with the most important being how to estimate non-use values which are not priced, and how to compare costs incurred initially with benefits that only accrue over time. A second requirement is that some means must be found to minimize the effects of moral hazard and asymmetric information in chosen projects. Suitable measures not only to obtain cost measures determine how a monitoring system can be developed which should enable the government to identify how output targets are to be met but also whether they are in fact achieved. Again, practical difficulties beset attempts to develop performance budgeting and to command its acceptance by project managers not subjected to the spur of competition. It requires a radical change in the culture of management and control that has been traditionally used.

Public Benefit Corporations (“PBCs”) are a revolutionary new form of business organization that overturn the fundamental corporate principle of shareholder wealth maximization. Of the many questions that surround this new entity type, perhaps the most perplexing is why Delaware – the most influential and important state for corporate law by far – chose to adopt it. I explore this troubling question through qualitative empirical research. I find that Delaware primarily wanted to serve the needs of social entrepreneurs and financiers, but also hoped to harness the power of capitalism to remedy social ills that government has so far failed to fix. The PBC statute rather poorly implements either of these goals. The PBC statute is not a very good enforcement tool. On the other hand, the statute may prove an effective reinforcement tool, aiding sincere social entrepreneurs to pursue their various missions. Also, private ordering, such as certification by outside entities like B Lab, may fill many of the important gaps left by the law.

This chapter examines Augustine of Hippo's advocacy of belief on authority as a legitimate basis of philosophical inquiry and how it put him at odds with the Academics. Augustine's entry into the life of the Church at the age of thirty-three led him to believe that he had come into possession of the truth he had long been seeking. Broadly speaking, this was the truth concerning God and spiritual things, and it initiated a form of inquiry known by the motto “faith seeking understanding.” This chapter explores the disagreement between Augustine and the Academics over inquiry and the role of belief on authority within it. In particular, it considers three problems that the Academics identified with belief on authority, all of which are found in the writings of Cicero and which were therefore known to Augustine: the Problem of Dubious Benefit, the Problem of Lack of Authority, and the Problem of Recognizing Authority. Finally, it looks at Augustine's attempt to resolve the Problem of Recognizing Authority.

This chapter examines income-related housing allowances in Great Britain, focusing on the largest of these, Housing Benefit. It briefly outlines the housing market and the social security policy context. Subsequent sections discuss the origins and development of Housing Benefit, the design of the current scheme, and its role and impact. The chapter then looks at Income Support for Mortgage Interest. This is followed by a discussion of the reform of Housing Benefit, the problems that reform was or is intended to address and the difficulties involved in attempting to resolve these problems. The chapter then discusses the impact of the new Local Housing Allowance, which is the most significant element of the latest reform. The final section sets out some conclusions.

A cost-benefit analysis of flood disaster managementin the Netherlands is presented in the context of climate change. The costs and benefits of potential emergency measures in designated flood disaster areas are examined. Benefit to cost ratios based on material damage costs are modified based on the assessment of public risk aversion, measured through public willingness to accept compensation (WTAC) for controlled flooding should the designated emergency areas actually be employed in situations of disaster flooding. The estimated WTAC value is an economic indicator of the expected welfare loss due to fear, stress, and social disruption and should be added to the material damage costs of controlled flooding. WTAC is substantial, varying roughly between €185,000 and €370,000 per household per flood event, depending on flood probability and inundation depth, but also on respondent characteristics,such as evacuation history,trust in existing flood emergency plans, fear of flooding and subjective risk perception.

This chapter outlines the recent developments in social security policy. The analysis starts with a review of key themes in welfare reform since 1997. It is argued that New Labour has considerably reformed the social security system, which was driven by the need to adapt to societal changes and economic policy concerns. It also examines the recent developments, which include the ones related to welfare to work, Incapacity Benefit, policies for lone parents, and pension reform. The chapter furthermore considers the emerging trends that can be translated into primary long-term reforms if Labour returns to office in 2005.

This chapter argues that Labour lacks a coherent strategy in relation to housing policy, and that government policy in relation to social housing, home ownership and homelessness is marked by a degree of contradiction and incoherence. It notes that in social housing, as in other areas of social welfare, the role of the local authority has become that of strategic management rather than provision. It further notes that the choice agenda has been pursued through piloting of reform to Housing Benefit, in the form of the Local Housing allowance, which offers a standard payment fixed according to family circumstance and local rents. The chapter explains that the idea is that this offers claimants a ‘choice’ in terms of the quality and quantity of housing they consume (although, in practice, little choice about the provider).

Chapter 4 examines how Canadian policymakers’ renewed promise to tackle child poverty translated into the Child Tax Benefit, the nonrefundable Child Tax Credit, and the Working Income Tax Benefit. Whereas the logic of tax relief served as the springboard for fiscalization in the US, the logic of income supplementation drove the process in Canada. This difference had important implications for the shape and scope of Canadian tax credits, enabling them to significantly reduce child poverty relative to the much weaker outcomes in the US. Family allowances offered policymakers an alternative to welfare as the primary method of delivering cash benefits to children. Canadian policymakers, including conservative policymakers and profamily groups, saw expanding child tax credits as a way to “take children off welfare” by redirecting benefits through a nonstigmatizing program. The initial change occurred under the Progressive Conservatives in 1992 and was consolidated under the Liberals in 1997.

This chapter examines the ways in which households pay for their housing. It highlights the lack of understanding on how and why households choose to spend very different amounts on housing. The chapter also examines the institutional structures involved in the finance of housing and government subsidies, and their impacts. Particular focus is given to the structures of financing of owner occupation and the way that they can lead to affordability problems for some households. Another focus of this chapter is on the present system of Housing Benefit for renters, which can lead to disincentive effects associated with poverty and unemployment traps.

Bitter Roots introduces an innovative new way to think about drug discovery from plants within a transnational perspective. It historicizes the process of drug discovery for each plant in a “metaphorical family of bitter roots” through the testing of popular accounts of innovation gleaned from oral testimonies, scientific articles, and product labels. To compare how people engaged in a common method for bringing traditional medicine into the laboratory, it proposes a schematic of five basic practices used by both scientists and healers. It uses competing narratives for how healers, scientists and others created records, experiments, explanations, products, and harvests to examine differing claims to priority, locality, appropriation, and benefits for each species. Herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry are therefore “coproduced” and have mutually supportive histories spanning continents and centuries. Rereading pharmacological discoveries across nations reveals the interplay between medical lineages and ultimately the multiple benefactors of our intellectual inheritance.

This chapter discusses both the pilot and nationally extended versions of the NDDP. It briefly outlines the main features of the NDDP, and focuses on some of the key findings that have emerged from published evaluations of it. The chapter addresses the challenges to smoothing a pathway to paid employment, and ways in which the NDDP scheme could be enhanced to fulfil the significant potential New Labour have placed in it. It concludes by arguing that a rigorous evaluation of the NDDP should be welcomed by those with an interest in helping Incapacity Benefit recipients into employment.

This chapter discusses Harris’s principle of justice in health care. Harris contends that his view is an equal opportunity principle of justice representing “the patient’s conception of benefit,” and is superior to “the provider’s or funder’s conception of benefit.” He argues that the latter position is “essentially a ‘public health’ conception,” as it “sees the business of health care as maintaining and improving public health or the health of the community.” This is a rather narrow construal of a public health conception; a more nuanced view can incorporate considerations of justice in a scheme for allocating scarce medical resources. The chapter discusses several competing principles of justice in addressing a situation of compelling need for policy makers in developing countries: setting priorities for choosing among HIV-infected individuals who are potential recipients of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) at a regional or national level in resource-poor countries ravaged by AIDS.

This chapter considers the changes made to social security (‘welfare’) during the coalition government and the early days of the Conservative government. It makes clear that while the size of the social security budget made it a clear target for a government determined to reduce public expenditure, policy was driven by ideology in terms of attempting to change individual behaviour and reducing the role of the state. The chapter argues that while there were some elements of continuity with the New Labour governments (for example in relation to WHAT), there was also radical change (such as the introduction of benefit caps and the effective abandoning of the commitment to reduce child poverty). However, older people saw the state pension being protected by a ‘triple lock’. It suggests that the neo-liberal project was being further intensified by the Conservative government elected in 2015.

Blackman and Rogers critically examines the use of popular images within the media whereby government have adopted punitive sanctions towards young adults in Britain. They develop a theoretical analysis of advanced youth marginality through the work of Loic Wacquant and John Westergaard related to anomie. They address the bio-political similarities between the work of Thomas Malthus and Charles Murray on the poor youth defined as ‘redundant population.’ The chapter develops a theory of Advanced Youth Marginality and applies Agamben (2005) theory of the state of exception as a metaphor of youth austerity in the form of bio-political control by governmental and media organisations.

Linda Brooks examines the impact of the current government austerity measures experienced at a local charity based in the borough of Castle Point in Essex. Linda draws from first-hand experience of working with young adults to provide valuable insights into the direct impact of austerity measures as lived under social suffering. She employs ethnographic and biographical approaches to show real life examples of the impact of government austerity measures, which increase social disadvantage for young people within the local communities.

In this chapter it is pointed out, first, that even though the replacement of reasons of rights with reasons of beneficence is facilitated by the fact that the things to which we have rights benefit us, it will be a matter of controversy whether the fulfilment of desires which go beyond rights should count morally. Secondly, taking its departure from T. M. Scanlon’s account of the object of responsibility as judgement-sensitive attitudes, this chapter presents a conception of responsibility as practical reason-based, according to which what we are responsible for is the outcome of deliberation on practical reasons. Thirdly, from this conception a distinction between what we are basically and non-basically responsible for is derived. This distinction is important because it makes it clear that we can be responsible for more harm without being more blameworthy.

From October 2013, the UK government is introducing a new ‘super’ means-tested benefit, universal credit, bringing together various payments for those in and out of work. Its main goals are to simplify the benefits system, improve work incentives and combat ‘welfare dependency’. This chapter outlines the main provisions of the proposed scheme and reactions to it. The core of the chapter is an examination of universal credit from a gender perspective, in particular in relation to access to income for individuals in couples. Specific features discussed include the effects on ‘second earners’ and the arrangements for payment. The author argues for ‘welfare reform’ such as this to be analysed in terms of not only the numbers of men and women affected in terms of resources, but also what impact it may have on gender roles and relationships; the potential for individuals to achieve financial autonomy; and gender inequalities within the household, both immediately and in the longer term.