CEPA News - Spring 1999

CEPA is in the midst of a project funded by the United Nations Division for Social Policy and Development, with Lance Taylor as the principal investigator. The project builds upon the Globalization and Social Policy Project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Developed and developing countries together have been profoundly affected by processes of globalization over the past two decades. The main impacts in developing economies were almost simultaneous deregulation of both sides of the balance of payments - the current and capital accounts. These moves were the centerpiece of a "neoliberal" or "reform" policy package which also included privatization of public enterprises, liberalization of labor and financial markets, fiscal and monetary austerity, and (quite frequently) reduction of government activity in the field of social policy.

Social policy, in turn, comprises a number of domestic, primarily public incentives which seek to cushion the outcomes of market-driven economic activities and promote equally distributed and secure well-being for all workers and citizens. These interventions include labor market policies (such as unemployment insurance and job training), family policies (children’s allowances and publicly-supported childcare), social wage policies (health insurance, public education and pension schemes), and redistributive tax-transfer policies (progressive income taxation, public assistance). Social interventions are unavoidably interlinked with social expenditures under such headings as primary health care, family planning, basic education, provision of clean water and sanitation, and nutritional support including food subsidies.

Globalization and changes in social policy combine in an ongoing dynamic process; analysis of their joint effects on people’s well-being is essential for sensible policy design. The present project will take up these questions on the basis of country studies informed by a common macroeconomic framework and research methodology. Ten to fifteen countries will be studied to provide a range of macroeconomic and social experiences. The studies are undertaken by national researchers with worldwide reputations who broadly follow a common analytical approach. Comparability across the papers will be assured by the researcher’s shared worldview, and the countries themselves have been chosen to provide policy contrasts.

In January of 1999, the authors of the country studies will meet in New York to discuss their findings which are expected to culminate in a volume shortly thereafter. Following up on the 1995 United Nations World Summit for Social Development, the findings of this project will be presented to a Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in the year 2000.

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