DECO 27A24 - Welfare State and Working Poverty: Work in a post-COVID world

This course is intended to equip students with a comparative understanding of welfare state design to recognise the operation of an advanced economy and analyse the current socio-economic challenges determining the structure of labour market institutions. For this purpose, different national labour markets and welfare state models shall be examined in a quantitative interdisciplinary perspective. This course develops current scholarship on welfare economics and expands it to analyse the national models in Germany, France, USA and China. It builds upon the macroeconomic policy lessons learnt from past economic crises to develop an understanding of challenges faced in post-COVID economy by focusing on (1) the shift of global economic power to emerging markets, (2) from full employment to flexibility, (3) immigration, (4) intensification of technological change and (5) employment impact of climate change adaptation. The participants in this seminar will explore the pillars on which the global system is built, from the basics of the Bretton Woods system, to multilateral economic institutions (WTO, IMF, BRICS). The course will link the regulation of non-standard employment and precarious work in different sectors of the global economy (like platform economy) to the twin issues of working poverty and ‘jobless growth'. It includes the role of intensified regional and global integration, labour market reforms, and scholarly and policy debates on economic nationalism as a set of protectionist state policies. The course will also provide conceptual and empirical background to cover some elementary general equilibrium theory of welfare economics. The discussion would further explore the debate on the role of minimum wage as a useful redistributive tool. Learning outcome: 1. Demonstrate knowledge of the economic, social, and political elements that make up the character of major world economies and different welfare systems. 2. Introduce main concepts applied in economic analysis and different approaches to study welfare states. 3. Identify the reasons to explain the differences in long-run economic performance. 4. Explain conflicting interpretations of economic development and labour market developments. 5. Integrate multinational and transcontinental analysis through case study learning. 6. Place economic and labour market developments in the western economies within a larger global context. 7. Read and analyse historical texts from both mainstream and heterodox approach. 8. Develop skills in chronological thinking and demonstrate the ability to use economic toolkit by applying them into a specific issue of welfare state arrangements. 9. Prepare students to think like a socially conscious political economist. 10. Appreciate the differences in how economies approach the crisis based on their respective economic model.

Ravi TRIPATHI

English

Spring 2021-2022

1. A ‘policy case competition' to research, design, and present their team's policy proposals on current issues (40%) 2. A 2000-word essay submission based on course readings (40%) 3. Individual presentation (20%)