RESEARCH PAPER
Should the Government Provide Jobs for Everyone? Societal Expectations and Their Impact on Labour Market Institutions and Outcomes
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Department of Macroeconomics and Development Research, Poznań University of Economics and Business
Submission date: 2018-02-14
Acceptance date: 2018-10-19
Publication date: 2018-12-20
GNPJE 2018;296(4):179-210
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ABSTRACT
This study explores whether and to what extent voters expect the government
to provide jobs for everyone who wants to work. It examines the link between voter
expectations and the labour market situation. It finds that the stronger the expectation of
the government to provide a job for everyone in the mid-1990s was, the worse the labour
market situation is today. Two hypotheses inspired by the theory of public choice are
proposed to explain this relationship: (1) societal expectations were not correlated with
reforms of labour market institutions in the next two decades; (2) support for the idea of the
government providing a job for everyone was significantly lower among the employed (who
in many countries constituted the majority of voters) than among other groups, and this
difference did not depend on the labour market situation. The empirical analysis is based
on a set of 29 indicators of labour market institutions and covers countries included in the
Role of Government survey for 1996–2016 — conducted as part of the International Social
Survey Programme. The obtained results are largely consistent with the stated hypotheses.