Protecting All

Book excerpt: "Socially inclusive growth is the talk of the town in developing countries. But to go from talk to walk these countries face a critical task: reconstructing their welfare states given the failures of the standard Bismarckian model and the challenges posed by rapid technological change. This book—known to many as the White Paper—is indispensable for tackling this task. It develops a clear conceptual framework to help policy makers understand this complex issue, set clear objectives, evaluate trade-offs, and chart a coherent path of reform. A much-needed and very welcome contribution." --Santiago Levy, Senior Fellow—Global Economy and Development, Brookings Economic and Social Policy in Latin America Initiative, Brookings Institution "Most countries have failed to support people adequately as the combination of globalization and technology changes the structure of their economies and their jobs. This has fostered a backlash in which economic insecurity is widespread and support for populist policies is on the rise. We can do much better than this by sharing risks and providing a guaranteed minimum to everyone. This important book lays out a set of policies that strikes a new balance between economic flexibility and individual security that is relevant to both advanced and developing countries." --Minouche Shafik, Director, London School of Economics and Political Science "Economic insecurity confronts working people around the world today. To overcome this insecurity through suitable risk-sharing interventions is a policy challenge of the first order. This exceptionally thoughtful and clearly written book charts a course for replacing employment-based risk-sharing policies with social insurance†“based ones, financed by general revenues with the broadest possible base. The resultant Flexicurity model promises 'a more robust and resilient policy response to a diverse and fluid world of work.' " --Gary Fields, Professor of International and Comparative Labor and Professor of Economics, Cornell University "Protecting All presents thoughtful, thorough, and bold proposals to achieve universal social protection in a modern welfare state. This lucid document identifies implementable policies for poverty prevention, coping with livelihood shocks, and managing labor market risks that range from state-guaranteed publicly funded income floors to mandated consumption-smoothing mechanisms funded by individual contributions to privately financed incentivized and purely voluntary consumption-smoothing schemes. Clearly written, rich with ideas, and relevant for countries at all income levels, Protecting All is bound to become an essential reference for policy makers and policy analysts focused on (re)designing social protection systems that achieve key social goals in ways consistent with fast-changing labor markets, fiscal sustainability, and economic efficiency and growth." --Nora Lustig, Professor of Latin American Economics and Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute, Tulane University