1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910298522603321

Autore

Christoffersen Henrik

Titolo

The Good Society : A Comparative Study of Denmark and Switzerland / / by Henrik Christoffersen, Michelle Beyeler, Reiner Eichenberger, Peter Nannestad, Martin Paldam

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin, Heidelberg : , : Springer Berlin Heidelberg : , : Imprint : Springer, , 2014

ISBN

3-642-37238-4

Edizione

[1st ed. 2014.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (328 p.)

Disciplina

330.9489

Soggetti

Public finance

Political economy

Quality of life

Public Economics

International Political Economy

Quality of Life Research

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Preface -- 1 Introduction -- Part I: The Quality of Life in Two Different Good Societies: Denmark and Switzerland -- 2 Two Wealthy Economies and Their Development -- 3 Are the Standards of Living Similar or Dissimilar?- 4 Happiness in Denmark and Switzerland.-  Part II: Two Models of Good Societies -- 5 Two Stylized Economic Models -- 6 Political Institutions and Politics -- 7 Civil Society -- 8 Two Variants of the Welfare State -- 9 Immigration.-  Part III: Challenges for the Two Good Societies -- 10  The Future of the Danish Welfare State -- 11 The Future of the Swiss Welfare State -- 12 Conclusion.

Sommario/riassunto

Denmark and Switzerland are small and successful countries with exceptionally content populations. However, they have very different political institutions and economic models. They have followed the general tendency in the West toward economic convergence, but both countries have managed to stay on top. They both have a strong liberal tradition, but otherwise their economic strategies are a welfare state model for Denmark and a safe haven model for Switzerland. The Danish



welfare state is tax-based, while the expenditures for social welfare are insurance-based in Switzerland. The political institutions are a multiparty unicameral system in Denmark, and a permanent coalition system with many referenda and strong local government in Switzerland. Both approaches have managed to ensure smoothly working political power-sharing and economic systems that allocate resources in a fairly efficient way. To date, they have also managed to adapt the economies to changes in the external environment with a combination of stability and flexibility.