Social assistance and unemployment assistance, which provide means tested income support (social welfare) without pre-specified time limits, are viewed as one important reason for the persistently high level of unemployment in Germany by many economists. In order to increase work incentives and, at the same time, reduce social expenditures there have been various proposals to reform social welf...

Some Thoughts on Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Timing of Labor Market Reform In this paper, I analyze the pros and cons of implementing structural reforms of the labor market in booms vs. recessions, in light of considerations of social efficiency, political viability, and macroeconomic fine tuning. While the optimal timing of a reform depends on the relative importance of several conflict...

Three key ethical issues should inform the broader debate about health reform: (1) Why pursue universal coverage? (2) Why is cost containment an ethical issue? (3) What is fairness in financing? After examining these issues, we conclude that the core ethical values underlying each of these goals-including expanding opportunity, sharing burdens equally, and respect for persons-limit the means th...

This qualitative inquiry project investigates the political and policy discourses related to education reform in Taiwan. Specifically, it examines the science education reform policies and policy leaders’ vision for the reform. This work also reveals the unique challenges involved in implementing contemporary science education approaches in a Confucian learning culture. Data sources included re...

Governments reform policies in order to improve their efficiency and respond to changing social priorities. Reform is resisted when concerns exist about those who may lose out in the process, or when other policy goals are negatively impacted. Compensation can remove barriers to reform by addressing this resistance, and can contribute to adjustment by speeding its process but may itself impede ...

The term “social Darwinism” owes its currency and many of its connotations to Richard Hofstadter’s influential Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (SDAT). The postSDATmeanings of “social Darwinism” are the product of an unresolvedWhiggish tension in SDAT: Hofstadter championed economic reform over free markets, but he also condemned biology in social science, this while many progres...