Welfare and work incentives

The countries of Northern Europe have high taxes, and benefit levels well above the average for the industrialised world. An important issue for these countries today is the extent to which these high taxes and high benefits act as a disincentive to work, and this lucid and accessible study explores this phenomenon with particular reference to the countries of Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Denmark.

The editors, Professor A. B. Atkinson and Gunnar Viby Mogensen, have assembled a series of chapters which together provide a unified comparative study of the microeconomic process whereby high taxes and high benefits act as disincentives to work. The contributors analyse the current debate on changes to the welfare state system, and illuminate the macroeconomic policy issue of the relation between tax receipts and benefit expenditure.

This book contains much useful empirical evidence from the countries studied, and a detailed survey of the varying labour market institutions in Northern Europe. In all, the book represents a valuable addition to the literature in its focus on European rather than American labour supply experience