nach oben

Erschienen in:

2014 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

1. Two Good Societies: Switzerland and Denmark

verfasst von : Henrik Christoffersen, Michelle Beyeler, Reiner Eichenberger, Peter Nannestad, Martin Paldam

Erschienen in: The Good Society

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

What makes a good society? This question is one of the oldest in political economy. While widely different answers have been suggested over time, the answer given by Aristotle still seems to us to have a strong intuitive appeal: A good society is a society that enables its members to lead a good life. This definition begets the next question: What makes a good life? The next section gives a first look at two answers:

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Nächstes Kapitel Two Wealthy Economies and Their Development

In economics the original question has developed into the field of welfare theory where the answers given are very abstract.

The reason to take the logarithm is that welfare theory claims that relative differences count more than absolute differences. If you are poor, it matters a lot to get an income raise of € 100 per month, but if you are rich, such a raise is less important, but it may increase welfare the same if you get a 10 % increase in the wage.

A similar question is used in both the World Values Surveys (WVS) and the European Social Survey (ESS). The pattern in the results is the same: Denmark and Switzerland always stand out as very happy countries. This is also the case when the sample of countries is extended to other Western countries and to the rest of the world.

The pattern is stable across the five surveys, so we just report the aggregate for all polls for each country.

Denmark is now ahead of Sweden that has a rather similar welfare system. The difference to other EU-countries and Switzerland seems large at first, but it is smaller than it appears: Expenditures that are public programs in Denmark are often parts of (more or less compulsory) insurance schemes in other western countries.

One aspect of the market orientation in Denmark is well known. It is the Danish flexicurity model. The discussion of the model started on the political plan, and Wilthagen (1998) is as the first academic paper; see also Jørgensen and Madsen (2007).

A special part of the literature looks at microstates. They normally do significantly better than their neighbors as they specialize in safe haven activities; see Paldam (2013).

The idea that different institutions can fulfill the same function(s) is, of course, not novel in economics. Just consider two famous contributions: Coase (1960) and Ostrom (1990).

For a broad introduction to the institutional development of the Danish model see for instance Campbell et al. (2006).

Alesina A, Spolaore E, Warczarg R (2005) Trade growth and the size of countries. In: Aghion P, Durlauf SN (eds) Handbook of economic growth, vol 1B. North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp 1499–1542

Barkhoff J (2010) Europa wird entweder untergehen oder verschweizern. Konjunkturen einer Diskursfigur. In: Barkhoff J, Valerie H (eds) Schweiz schreiben. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 197–214CrossRef

Campbell JL, Hall JA, Pedersen OK (eds) (2006) National identity and the varieties of capitalism. The Danish experience. DJØF, Copenhagen

CIA. The world factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Coase RH (1960) The problem of social cost. J Law Econ 3(1):1–44CrossRef

ESS (European Social Survey). http://ess.nsd.uib.no/

Jørgensen H, Madsen PK (2007) Flexicurity and Beyond. Finding a new agenda for the European social model. DJØF, Copenhagen

Katzenstein PJ (1985) Small states in world markets. Cornell University Press, Ithaca/London

Maddison A (2003) The world economy: historical statistics. OECD, Paris, See also the Maddison home page: http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/ that gave updates till February 2010

Ostrom E (1990) Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Paldam M (2013) Safe havens in Europe. Switzerland and the ten dwarfs. Eur J Comp Econ (scheduled for issue 3 2013)

Rodrik D (2007) One economics. Many recipes. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Statistics Denmark. http://www.dst.dk/en.aspx

Wilthagen T (1998) Flexicurity – a new paradigm for labour market policy reform? WZB discussion paper. FSI, Berlin. (See also: Transfer: Eur Rev Labour Res 10: 166–86, 2004)

Titel: Two Good Societies: Switzerland and Denmark
verfasst von: Henrik Christoffersen
Michelle Beyeler
Reiner Eichenberger
Peter Nannestad
Martin Paldam
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Buch: The Good Society
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37237-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-642-37238-4

Copyright-Jahr: 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37238-4_1