Frank Vandenbroucke
Biographic Data
| ID | 315148 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank Vandenbroucke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank |
| FAMILY NAME | Vandenbroucke |
| SIGNATURE | VANDENBROUCKE F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9748-9567 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 140 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Deep Reform and Targeted Investment: Essential Strategies for Preparing for the Next Health Emergency in Europe and Elsewhere
The EU 's role in income redistribution and insurance: Support, norm‐setter or provider? A review of justice‐based arguments
Income redistribution and insurance are core functions of welfare states. What role should the EU play in this domain? I examine the purchase of normative theorizing on social justice on this question, focusing on the contrast between three models of EU involvement: the EU as Support, which implies the sharing of resources through intergovernmental transfers; the EU as Provider, which implies EU cross‐border transfers towards individual citizens;…
Differences in Child Deprivation Across Europe: The Role of In-Cash and In-Kind Transfers
Conditional Generosity and Deservingness in Public Support for European Unemployment Risk Sharing
Previous research into public support for welfare solidarity often refers to the importance of ‘reciprocity’, which means that generous social benefits are supported if they are matched by credible commitments to contribute by those who can. The current article adds to this body of literature by providing novel empirical evidence on the roles of generosity and conditionality in support for European unemployment insurance programmes. Drawing on a …
Unemployment risk-sharing in the EU: How policy design influences citizen support for European unemployment policy
This article explores public preferences for European unemployment programs explicitly discussed in actual policymaker debate. European policymakers have been considering European-level Unemployment Risk Sharing (EURS) to stabilize member-state economies and provide a safety net for the unemployed. Using a conjoint experiment conducted in 13 European member states, we analyze public support across six crucial policy dimensions of EURS. The findin…
To fight poverty and social exclusion, EU law must buttress basic nuts and bolts of the welfare edifice
This article provides a conclusion to the EJSS Special Issue ‘Discussing strategies for Social Europe: The potential role of EU law in contributing to the Union’s policy objective of fighting poverty and social exclusion’. The contributions to this Special Issue raise a fundamental question: why did European governments fail to deliver on their promise, proclaimed with so much emphasis twenty years ago, to reduce poverty in Europe? It is too easy…
Unemployment benefits and activation in federal welfare states: An institutional moral hazard perspective
Subnational governments have become more involved in the ‘regulation of unemployment’ (the design, implementation and financing of unemployment-related benefits and activation), partly because they are thought to be better placed to activate the unemployed than federal governments. However, depending on its specific design, decentralization can reduce the incentives subnational governments have to implement effective activation. Such ‘institution…
Preferences for European unemployment insurance: A question of economic ideology or EU support
Against the backdrop of proposals to introduce a European unemployment insurance scheme, we study public support for such schemes by conducting a conjoint experiment on support for European unemployment insurance in 13 EU member states. We argue that European-level social policy initiatives and the underlying notions of solidarity cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional concept, but rather include various dimensions. Unemployment schemes vary in t…
Solidarity between Generations in Extended Families: Old-Age Income as a Way Out of Child Poverty
We analyse intergenerational solidarity within multigenerational households (MGHs) and assess how the formation of these households is related to poverty across European countries. Our aim is to assess how this type of household is a coping strategy with respect to financial distress for families with children. Using data from EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we examine three specific empirical questions with regards to th…
The Idea of a European Social Union: A Normative Introduction
We need a clear-cut concept with regard to the social dimension of the EU: not a European Welfare State, but a European Social Union. Why is it necessary? First, monetary integration requires supranational stabilization instruments: stabilization implies risk-sharing and a ‘responsibility cut’. Moreover, there is a limit to the diversity of social models that can be accommodated in a monetary union. Hence, monetary integration forces upon its mem…
A European Social Union after the Crisis
Today, many people agree that the EU lacks solidarity and needs a social dimension. This debate is not new, but until now the notion of a 'social Europe' remained vague and elusive. To make progress, we need a coherent conception of the reasons behind, and the agenda for, not a 'social Europe', but a new idea: a European Social Union. We must motivate, define, and demarcate an appropriate notion of European solidarity. We must also understand the…
Institutional Moral Hazard in the Multi-Tiered Regulation of Unemployment and Social Assistance Benefits and Activation - A Summary of Eight Country Case Studies
Comparative Social Policy Analysis in the EU at the Brink of a New Era
Comparative policy analysis plays an important role in the EU: European social policy, as it developed from the 2000s, is intrinsically interwoven with comparative social policy analysis, notably in the context of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). A review of the role of comparative social policy analysis in the OMC highlights a number of long-standing challenges, which are discussed in the first section of the paper. Do EU member states com…
Faire de l’investissement social un principe de réforme pour la protection sociale
The impact of pensions, transfers and taxes on child poverty in Europe: The Role of Size, Pro-Poorness and Child Orientation
We assess the impact of redistributive policy on child poverty across 29 European welfare states, using EU SILC 2005-2012. We distinguish between spending on pensions, spending on other cash transfers and taxation. For each of these instruments of redistribution, we further distinguish three features: size, pro-poorness and targeting towards households with children. Pensions are generally neglected in analyses on child poverty, but are relevant …
Mapping At-Risk-of-Poverty Rates, Household Employment, and Social Spending
As a first step stylized facts are presented concerning at-risk-of-poverty rates for the non-elderly population, household employment (a concept introduced in this chapter) and social spending in European welfare states. The chapter provides a first exploration of a central theme of the book, which relates to employment-centred welfare reform: is it possible to structurally replace spending on cash benefits for working-age adults and their famili…
Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction: How Successful Are European Welfare States?
Since the beginning of the great recession, poverty has, not unexpectedly, increased in many Member States of the European Union. More worrying in view of its structural implications is the observation that in the years before the financial crisis, in most European countries poverty rates for the non-elderly population have stagnated or even increased, in spite of economic growth and rising employment. This suggests limitations that are inherent …
The EU and Minimum Income Protection: Clarifying the Policy Conundrum
Should the EU be involved in the governance of minimum income protection, and if it should, in which role precisely? This question raises a complex policy conundrum. We focus on a proposal by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) for an EU Framework Directive on Minimum Income Protection, in order to examine three aspects of that policy conundrum: (1) the instrumental relevance of minimum income protection; (2) the unequal burden of the redist…
The welfare state after the great recession
The economic crisis has given rise to significant challenges to the welfare state. Given that welfare expenses account for a large proportion of all state spending in the member countries of the European Union, reducing government spending means cutting welfare measures. Yet social protection, in particular unemployment insurance benefits and minimum income support, has significantly softened the impact of the crisis for millions of individuals. …
Disappointing poverty trends: Is the social investment state to blame
Should we explain the disappointing outcomes of the Open Method of Co-ordination on Inclusion by methodological weaknesses or by substantive contradictions in the ‘social investment’ paradigm? To clarify the underlying concepts, we first revisit the original ‘Lisbon inspiration’ and then relate it to the idea of the ‘new welfare state’, as proposed in the literature on new risks in post-industrial societies. We then discuss two explanations for d…
Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism and optimal linear income taxation
European Social Democracy and the Third Way: Convergence, Divisions, and Shared Questions
Taking a long-term view of social-democratic history, Donald Sassoon argues, convincingly, that we witness ‘an unprecedented, Europe-wide convergence of the parties of the Left’ (1998: 92).1 There is convergence of a short-term nature too. Read a sample of the European literature on the welfare state published over the last five or six years by centre-left policy institutes, parties and scholars. You may start with the report issued by the Britis…
Social Justice and Individual Ethics in an Open Society: Equality, Responsibility, and Incentives
Can the need for incentives justify inequality? Starting from this question, Frank Vandenbroucke examines a conception of justice in which both equality and responsibility are involved. In the first part of the inquiry, which explores the implementation of that conception of justice, the justification of incentives assumes that agents make personal choices based only upon their own interests. The second part of the book challenges the idea that a…
European Social Democracy: Convergence, Divisions, and Shared Questions
Disappointing poverty trends: Is the social investment state to blame
Should we explain the disappointing outcomes of the Open Method of Co-ordination on Inclusion by methodological weaknesses or by substantive contradictions in the ‘social investment’ paradigm? To clarify the underlying concepts, we first revisit the original ‘Lisbon inspiration’ and then relate it to the idea of the ‘new welfare state’, as proposed in the literature on new risks in post-industrial societies. We then discuss two explanations for d…
Preferences for European unemployment insurance: A question of economic ideology or EU support
Against the backdrop of proposals to introduce a European unemployment insurance scheme, we study public support for such schemes by conducting a conjoint experiment on support for European unemployment insurance in 13 EU member states. We argue that European-level social policy initiatives and the underlying notions of solidarity cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional concept, but rather include various dimensions. Unemployment schemes vary in t…
Unemployment risk-sharing in the EU: How policy design influences citizen support for European unemployment policy
This article explores public preferences for European unemployment programs explicitly discussed in actual policymaker debate. European policymakers have been considering European-level Unemployment Risk Sharing (EURS) to stabilize member-state economies and provide a safety net for the unemployed. Using a conjoint experiment conducted in 13 European member states, we analyze public support across six crucial policy dimensions of EURS. The findin…
The impact of pensions, transfers and taxes on child poverty in Europe: The Role of Size, Pro-Poorness and Child Orientation
We assess the impact of redistributive policy on child poverty across 29 European welfare states, using EU SILC 2005-2012. We distinguish between spending on pensions, spending on other cash transfers and taxation. For each of these instruments of redistribution, we further distinguish three features: size, pro-poorness and targeting towards households with children. Pensions are generally neglected in analyses on child poverty, but are relevant …
Conditional Generosity and Deservingness in Public Support for European Unemployment Risk Sharing
Previous research into public support for welfare solidarity often refers to the importance of ‘reciprocity’, which means that generous social benefits are supported if they are matched by credible commitments to contribute by those who can. The current article adds to this body of literature by providing novel empirical evidence on the roles of generosity and conditionality in support for European unemployment insurance programmes. Drawing on a …
European Social Democracy: Convergence, Divisions, and Shared Questions
Comparative Social Policy Analysis in the EU at the Brink of a New Era
Comparative policy analysis plays an important role in the EU: European social policy, as it developed from the 2000s, is intrinsically interwoven with comparative social policy analysis, notably in the context of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). A review of the role of comparative social policy analysis in the OMC highlights a number of long-standing challenges, which are discussed in the first section of the paper. Do EU member states com…
Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism and optimal linear income taxation
Differences in Child Deprivation Across Europe: The Role of In-Cash and In-Kind Transfers
Solidarity between Generations in Extended Families: Old-Age Income as a Way Out of Child Poverty
We analyse intergenerational solidarity within multigenerational households (MGHs) and assess how the formation of these households is related to poverty across European countries. Our aim is to assess how this type of household is a coping strategy with respect to financial distress for families with children. Using data from EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we examine three specific empirical questions with regards to th…
Unemployment benefits and activation in federal welfare states: An institutional moral hazard perspective
Subnational governments have become more involved in the ‘regulation of unemployment’ (the design, implementation and financing of unemployment-related benefits and activation), partly because they are thought to be better placed to activate the unemployed than federal governments. However, depending on its specific design, decentralization can reduce the incentives subnational governments have to implement effective activation. Such ‘institution…
European Social Democracy: Convergence, Divisions, and Shared Questions
European Social Democracy and the Third Way: Convergence, Divisions, and Shared Questions
Taking a long-term view of social-democratic history, Donald Sassoon argues, convincingly, that we witness ‘an unprecedented, Europe-wide convergence of the parties of the Left’ (1998: 92).1 There is convergence of a short-term nature too. Read a sample of the European literature on the welfare state published over the last five or six years by centre-left policy institutes, parties and scholars. You may start with the report issued by the Britis…
Social Justice and Individual Ethics in an Open Society: Equality, Responsibility, and Incentives
Can the need for incentives justify inequality? Starting from this question, Frank Vandenbroucke examines a conception of justice in which both equality and responsibility are involved. In the first part of the inquiry, which explores the implementation of that conception of justice, the justification of incentives assumes that agents make personal choices based only upon their own interests. The second part of the book challenges the idea that a…
Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism and optimal linear income taxation
Disappointing poverty trends: Is the social investment state to blame
Should we explain the disappointing outcomes of the Open Method of Co-ordination on Inclusion by methodological weaknesses or by substantive contradictions in the ‘social investment’ paradigm? To clarify the underlying concepts, we first revisit the original ‘Lisbon inspiration’ and then relate it to the idea of the ‘new welfare state’, as proposed in the literature on new risks in post-industrial societies. We then discuss two explanations for d…
The welfare state after the great recession
The economic crisis has given rise to significant challenges to the welfare state. Given that welfare expenses account for a large proportion of all state spending in the member countries of the European Union, reducing government spending means cutting welfare measures. Yet social protection, in particular unemployment insurance benefits and minimum income support, has significantly softened the impact of the crisis for millions of individuals. …
The EU and Minimum Income Protection: Clarifying the Policy Conundrum
Should the EU be involved in the governance of minimum income protection, and if it should, in which role precisely? This question raises a complex policy conundrum. We focus on a proposal by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) for an EU Framework Directive on Minimum Income Protection, in order to examine three aspects of that policy conundrum: (1) the instrumental relevance of minimum income protection; (2) the unequal burden of the redist…
Mapping At-Risk-of-Poverty Rates, Household Employment, and Social Spending
As a first step stylized facts are presented concerning at-risk-of-poverty rates for the non-elderly population, household employment (a concept introduced in this chapter) and social spending in European welfare states. The chapter provides a first exploration of a central theme of the book, which relates to employment-centred welfare reform: is it possible to structurally replace spending on cash benefits for working-age adults and their famili…
Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction: How Successful Are European Welfare States?
Since the beginning of the great recession, poverty has, not unexpectedly, increased in many Member States of the European Union. More worrying in view of its structural implications is the observation that in the years before the financial crisis, in most European countries poverty rates for the non-elderly population have stagnated or even increased, in spite of economic growth and rising employment. This suggests limitations that are inherent …
Institutional Moral Hazard in the Multi-Tiered Regulation of Unemployment and Social Assistance Benefits and Activation - A Summary of Eight Country Case Studies
Comparative Social Policy Analysis in the EU at the Brink of a New Era
Comparative policy analysis plays an important role in the EU: European social policy, as it developed from the 2000s, is intrinsically interwoven with comparative social policy analysis, notably in the context of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). A review of the role of comparative social policy analysis in the OMC highlights a number of long-standing challenges, which are discussed in the first section of the paper. Do EU member states com…
Faire de l’investissement social un principe de réforme pour la protection sociale
The impact of pensions, transfers and taxes on child poverty in Europe: The Role of Size, Pro-Poorness and Child Orientation
We assess the impact of redistributive policy on child poverty across 29 European welfare states, using EU SILC 2005-2012. We distinguish between spending on pensions, spending on other cash transfers and taxation. For each of these instruments of redistribution, we further distinguish three features: size, pro-poorness and targeting towards households with children. Pensions are generally neglected in analyses on child poverty, but are relevant …
The Idea of a European Social Union: A Normative Introduction
We need a clear-cut concept with regard to the social dimension of the EU: not a European Welfare State, but a European Social Union. Why is it necessary? First, monetary integration requires supranational stabilization instruments: stabilization implies risk-sharing and a ‘responsibility cut’. Moreover, there is a limit to the diversity of social models that can be accommodated in a monetary union. Hence, monetary integration forces upon its mem…
A European Social Union after the Crisis
Today, many people agree that the EU lacks solidarity and needs a social dimension. This debate is not new, but until now the notion of a 'social Europe' remained vague and elusive. To make progress, we need a coherent conception of the reasons behind, and the agenda for, not a 'social Europe', but a new idea: a European Social Union. We must motivate, define, and demarcate an appropriate notion of European solidarity. We must also understand the…
To fight poverty and social exclusion, EU law must buttress basic nuts and bolts of the welfare edifice
This article provides a conclusion to the EJSS Special Issue ‘Discussing strategies for Social Europe: The potential role of EU law in contributing to the Union’s policy objective of fighting poverty and social exclusion’. The contributions to this Special Issue raise a fundamental question: why did European governments fail to deliver on their promise, proclaimed with so much emphasis twenty years ago, to reduce poverty in Europe? It is too easy…
Unemployment benefits and activation in federal welfare states: An institutional moral hazard perspective
Subnational governments have become more involved in the ‘regulation of unemployment’ (the design, implementation and financing of unemployment-related benefits and activation), partly because they are thought to be better placed to activate the unemployed than federal governments. However, depending on its specific design, decentralization can reduce the incentives subnational governments have to implement effective activation. Such ‘institution…
Preferences for European unemployment insurance: A question of economic ideology or EU support
Against the backdrop of proposals to introduce a European unemployment insurance scheme, we study public support for such schemes by conducting a conjoint experiment on support for European unemployment insurance in 13 EU member states. We argue that European-level social policy initiatives and the underlying notions of solidarity cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional concept, but rather include various dimensions. Unemployment schemes vary in t…
Solidarity between Generations in Extended Families: Old-Age Income as a Way Out of Child Poverty
We analyse intergenerational solidarity within multigenerational households (MGHs) and assess how the formation of these households is related to poverty across European countries. Our aim is to assess how this type of household is a coping strategy with respect to financial distress for families with children. Using data from EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we examine three specific empirical questions with regards to th…
The EU 's role in income redistribution and insurance: Support, norm‐setter or provider? A review of justice‐based arguments
Income redistribution and insurance are core functions of welfare states. What role should the EU play in this domain? I examine the purchase of normative theorizing on social justice on this question, focusing on the contrast between three models of EU involvement: the EU as Support, which implies the sharing of resources through intergovernmental transfers; the EU as Provider, which implies EU cross‐border transfers towards individual citizens;…
Differences in Child Deprivation Across Europe: The Role of In-Cash and In-Kind Transfers
Conditional Generosity and Deservingness in Public Support for European Unemployment Risk Sharing
Previous research into public support for welfare solidarity often refers to the importance of ‘reciprocity’, which means that generous social benefits are supported if they are matched by credible commitments to contribute by those who can. The current article adds to this body of literature by providing novel empirical evidence on the roles of generosity and conditionality in support for European unemployment insurance programmes. Drawing on a …
Unemployment risk-sharing in the EU: How policy design influences citizen support for European unemployment policy
This article explores public preferences for European unemployment programs explicitly discussed in actual policymaker debate. European policymakers have been considering European-level Unemployment Risk Sharing (EURS) to stabilize member-state economies and provide a safety net for the unemployed. Using a conjoint experiment conducted in 13 European member states, we analyze public support across six crucial policy dimensions of EURS. The findin…
Deep Reform and Targeted Investment: Essential Strategies for Preparing for the Next Health Emergency in Europe and Elsewhere
Economics (21 works) · Political science (20 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (19 works) · Economic growth (13 works) · European union (11 works) · Public economics (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Welfare (9 works) · Labour economics (8 works)