欧元危机下欧洲福利国家面临的困境--留学生essay代写范文

留学生essay代写范文:“欧元危机下欧洲福利国家面临的困境”，这篇论文主要描述的是欧洲国家向来以良好的福利政策受到了全世界的高度赞赏，欧洲通过国家政策来提高和保障国民的福利，但在金融危机席卷全球时，欧洲经济的发展也受到到了一定的影响，欧洲现有的福利制度和社会保障体系陷入困境之中。

Europe is the birthplace of the welfare state, it has been praised by the world for its high welfare policy and excellent social security. However, after the financial crisis swept the world, eurozone crisis which attacks European economic challenges the whole European social security system. Their welfare systems are in deep water. In recent years, Chinese social security has been in a period of development and reform. Therefore, researching on the predicament of European welfare system especially under the euro debt crisis is an important reference and an enlightenment of meanings to China.

I performed a systematic review on European countries’ welfare models, classifying them into four parts: East, West, North and South. Then I selected a representative from each part and studied them. I used welfare economics theory and game theory to analyse data, finally I compare European welfare states as a whole with American welfare states in order to find how can European countries change their policies and reform their welfare states. The conclusion is that European government should gradually reduce welfare spending, meanwhile focus more policies on activations factors such as work conditional benefit,

Introduction介绍

The European debt crisis, the full name is European sovereign debt crisis, means that since 2009 the sovereign debt crisis happened in some European countries. It is a continuation and deepening of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. Its reason is that there are too many debt burdens on the government, far exceeding governmental tolerance range. So the risk of default occurred.

In the early Wall Street financial crisis in October 2008, the Nordic Icelandic sovereign debt problems came to the fore. Then the debt crisis happened in the Middle East area, given the small economies of these countries and timely international aids, the sovereign debt problems had not lead to a greater global financial turmoil.

In December 2009, the Greek sovereign debt crisis issue was highlighted. In March 2010, it became worse. The debt crisis began to spread in five European countries, namely Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal. Meanwhile, the three major U.S. rating agencies downgraded Greece and other debtors’ credit rating constantly which made people worry about the whole Europe credit. Finally, the eurozone crisis broke out.

Under the terrible eurozone crisis, it is difficult to maintain high level welfare policies for most European countries. In addition to the harsh economic environment, welfare states have features of rigid expansion, all of them cause the European welfare systems to be locked in the horns of a dilemma.

This article will explain what the dilemma eurozone countries are facing with. It is a policy making problem rather than an economical problem. In fact, the dilemma of policy is originally from the common currency dilemma that there are different states with diversed economic level in the whole European Union. In the past, if one country lost its competitiveness of export or energy of economy, it could devalue the currency to stimulate the economy. However, when the common currency policy came into force, the former measure was disappeared. So the countries merged into crisis have to reduce wages of workers and decrease the costs while people are opposed to it. How to balance the economic and people’s feelings becomes the critical part.

The study begins with introducing typical European social welfare regimes. It is based on the Esping Andersen’s idea: The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. The man classified welfare states into three types, they are “Liberal welfare states, Conservative corporatist welfare states and Social-democratic welfare states ”. The main features of the liberal welfare states are “means-tested assistance, modest universal transfers or modest social-insurance plans” “Benefits cater mainly to a clientele of low-income, usually working class, state dependants.” In it, the “limits of welfare equal the marginal propensity to opt for welfare instead of work. Entitlement rules are therefor strict and often associated with stigma; benefits are typically modest.”The examples of it are the Australia, United State and Canada . The second one, so called “conservative/corporatist welfare states”, which emphasizes on social insurance not the social assistance.  As the Esping Anderson analysed, in the “conservative welfare state”, all of the contributions and benefits is not distributed equally, because of the individual’s insurance is different, it is based on income for each person. In other words, it is quite like the Bismark model.“…the corporatist regimes are also typically shaped by the Church, and hence strongly committed to the preservation of traditional familyhood. Social insurance typically excludes non-working wives, and family benefits encourage motherhood.” “…the state will only interfere when the family’s capacity to service its members is exhausted”. For example, the countries of this model are France, Italy, Austria and Germany. The last type, “social-democratic welfare states”, provides a high level of service and benefit. “all strata are incorporated under one universal insurance system, yet benefits are graduated according to accustomed earnings. This model crowds out the market [meaning the private sector providing such things as pension plans]…” “The ideal is not to maximise dependence on the family, but capacities for individual independence.” The state opts to “take direct responsibility of caring for children, the aged and the helpless.” It is promised to “allow women to choose work rather than the household ” “The Scandinavian social democrats were…capable of building a welfare state with features of sufficient luxury to satisfy the wants of a more discriminating public [by which I think he means those who were better off].” The representatives are the Scandinavian countries.

Because different countries are homogenous in terms of economic systems, historical environments and social cultures. I selected a representative from south Europe, north Europe, east Europe and west Europe. That makes it easier to understand European welfare system. The four countries are the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Italy. Then I found that Europe welfare states had potential safety hazards, so when the crisis came countries were really get into trouble. Also the eurozone crisis are caused by their high welfare states in a sense. Next, I use two mathematical models: S=Sa/G (S is the level of social welfare; Sa is the total social welfare expenditure; G is gross domestic product); Q=R+E+Z+J+M (R is the proportion of income security; E is the share of public education expenditure in total wage income; Z is the proportion of employment service expenditures accounts for total wage income; J is the proportion of housing welfare expenditures accounts for the proportion of total wage income; M is the proportion of various social services accounts for the total wage income). After that, I try to make two kinds of reform strategies, maintain or increase original welfare policy while another is to decrease the welfare level, so that analysing the dilemma by game theory. Finally I compared European with the US, using statistics from websites and journals. As the consequence, gradually reducing the welfare states and establishing a combination of European welfare state structures and the American idea of individual responsibility might be the right direction that European countries ought to hold.

Methods方法

Welfare economics theory analysis

The index of measuring welfare level is welfare spending as a share of gross domestic product, it can be expressed by a mathematical model: S=Sa/G (S is the level of social welfare; Sa is the total social welfare expenditure; G is gross domestic product). This formula can be decomposed: S ＝Sa /G＝ Sa /W * W /G ＝Q*H (W is total wage income). So Q=Sa/W represents the proportion coefficient of total social welfare expenditure accounts for the total wage income, also known as The social welfare burden proportion coefficient; H=W/G represents the proportion of the total wage income accounts for the GDP, also known as the proportion coefficient of allocation of factor of production. Therefore, how a country’s social welfare level is depends on whether the social welfare burden proportion coefficient and the proportion of allocation of factor of production are in a “moderate” range. That moderate range of social welfare level is an amplitude and limitation which can maintain social welfare level and quality. That means social welfare expenditure, in what extend, not only can insure the basic lives of citizens but also can encourage people to take part in the labor in order to promote the social economic and society developing in a sustainable way. Out of that range, it will have negative influences on social development. So the determinations on national welfare level must balance the way between individual activation and public security.

The social welfare burden coefficient model is Q=R+E+Z+J+M (R is the proportion of income security; E is the share of public education expenditure in total wage income; Z is the proportion of employment service expenditures accounts for total wage income; J is the proportion of housing welfare expenditures accounts for the proportion of total wage income; M is the proportion of various social services accounts for the total wage income). In fact, the direct reason causes European welfare crisis is that there are too many burdens on their welfare systems. The main European Union countries’ social security expenditures account for almost 20% of their countries’ GDP when the global average level are merely 7.5%. To alleviate the severe social dilemma, they need to cut welfare spending for governments. Only the “moderate range” can slash the welfare burden coefficient while satisfying current needs.

Game theory analysis博弈论分析

Regarding the policy changing as a game, in this game, it may appear to be in the following conditions: (1) The government increases welfare level, the result is the national satisfaction is increased but welfare predicament will be even more severe; (2) Government reduces the welfare level, it can be divided into two different plans: Plan A: slashing welfare states, the consequence can relieve welfare predicament but citizens will be very dissatisfied with the policy; Plan B: a small cut on welfare states, there will be less citizens’ discontents but welfare predicament will be alleviated slowly.

Here we analyse the above situations specificly. (1) The major beneficiary is national satisfaction when the government increases welfare level. However, if a country is in crisis, the national satisfaction may be less important, because increasing welfare level will result in more fiscal pressures such as higher financial deficits. When government has no money, the welfare policy it promised to implement is likely to be fake, that will make citizens more disgruntled. So this is the worst strategy which is a vicious cycle. (2) Government reduces the welfare level. For plan A, slashing welfare states can relieve welfare crisis quickly and reduce the burden on the state in order to prepare for rebuild the welfare system. This strategy is disadvantageous to citizens. During economic crisis, slashing welfare level may lead to the disposable personal income of the unemployed and low-income earners become less than before. It directly makes the standard of living depress sharply so social unrest arises which becomes worse can bring about coup; For plan B, a small cut on welfare states can change the current welfare dilemma without a strong civil resentment, that is the optimal strategy.

After reading figure 1, As we know, the yardsticks of “gross public social expenditure” which are on account of social spendings is usually used to do a comparision between different welfare systems. But the yardsticks of “net total social expenditure” are more sophiscated, including four aspects. They are: first, welfare states often recover their interests obtaining from tax; second, government may provide some special groups with tax preferences and the tax exemption rights; third, the government may require the private employers to offer some advantages; last, some social voluntary activities should be considered, for example the private charity. Thus, if we take the influence of more details as I mentioned before, the United States will not run far behind the most European states. On the contrary, it relocates at the middle of the vertical axis from figure 1. The U.S. is between the Netherlands and Sweden with a quite high value above the EU average level and also gets close to the first group comprised by BE, GB, DE, FR and SE.

From figure 2, the United States is so strong both in “private health expenditure” and “private pension expenditure” during 2005. It has above all the European countries at private health and pensions. As we can see, the majority of the European countries are less than 10% no matter from vertical or horizonal axis. So the American welfare system is more focusing on the private sector which almost no one in Europe can achieve its level.

Lots of scholars and organizations pointed out that the bad performences from European countries were due to the high welfare level and low market flexibility. Especially the welfare states, they all had a defect, namely high welfare level and high tax. So the first thing European countries should do is to reform their labor force market and product market if they really want to recover from the deep crisis.

Conclusion总结

The determinations on national welfare level must balance the way between individual activation and public security. It is better for European countries to do a small cut on welfare states, it can change the current welfare dilemma without a strong civil resentment. It is shown that the US welfare states are more focusing on the private welfare measures, selective targeted schemes and work-conditioned benefits and. That means more activations which stimulate individual to work. So the European model can do Americanization to a certain extent so that they can work out the predicament under the eurozone crisis. In a word, a balance of American activation welfare system and European universal coverage welfare system may be the best way to step out from the debt crisis in Europe.

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