Suchergebnisse

The debate on classification instruments for social security regimes opened by Esping-Andersen (1990) usually neglects the examination of the normative impact of the welfare state. This article focus on this latter through an analysis of systems of protection against unemployment in 11 of the European countries included in the database known as the Mutual Information System on Social Protection (MISSOC).We show in this article that unemployment insurance only recognize legal, authorized and declared salaried employees who have resided in the country for a set period of time, which confirms the close link between social policy and nationality, with some foreign workers being excluded from the circle of beneficiaries because of these norms. Unemployment insurance also always considers jobs as rare social goods - workers are expected to hold on to them, but they are declined differently along a person's life course. The dominance of the male employment norm and the complete lack of consideration given to domestic labour by unemployment insurance contribute to structuring gendered roles as separate and hierarchically organized. Disparities between countries, whether related to contextual differences or to the history of the local welfare state, do not weaken these arguments since they are not founded upon fundamentally different conceptions of unemployment.

This contribution develops a blueprint for a European fiscal union. We argue that a viable European fiscal union can be constructed without joint liability for public debt or a centralized government with a large common budget. Such a fiscal union should combine elements of market discipline with stabilisation in case of asymmetric shocks. Our proposal addresses the shortcomings of most other reform designs, which fail to offer a solution for insolvent or non-cooperative euro countries. We suggest a design which combines limited fiscal insurance with an orderly procedure to restructure the debt of insolvent member states. We show that fiscal insurance and a sovereign insolvency procedure are no contradiction but, on the contrary, are mutually reinforcing. Effective fiscal insurance helps to limit the stability risks involved in the implementation of an insolvency regime for sovereigns. And vice versa, a well-defined insolvency procedure reduces the risk that a fiscal capacity motivated as an insurance against transitory asymmetric shocks degenerates into a permanent transfer system. Moreover, we show that both elements promote the functioning of the European banking union and the new European fiscal governance.

Our public arrangements in this country for compensating unemployment (including the aggregate of federal and state legislation to that end) are quite properly referred to as an "insurance" program.' Study of the elements of coverage in an insurance policy will be found instructive, therefore, in the matter of eligibility and disqualification for unemployment benefits. A contract of insurance is designed to transfer certain defined risks from the insured to the insurer. The risks selected for this process in a particular policy will be described or stated affirmatively in its provisions. Certain exclusions from the risk may be specified for even greater precision in delineating the boundaries of the insured event--thus the process of inclusion and exclusion establishes the affirmative conditions of the insurer's liability and defines the insured event or, more precisely, the event insured against. Risks must be selected and defined to provide the subject matter for the operation of the agreement between the parties. In addition, the insurer will probably insert provisions designed to control or minimize the risk assumed.