Nicholas Barr Quotes

By 'trading' (i.e. pooling), individuals can acquire certainty.

First, the welfare state is not a subject apart, but fits naturally into the framework of economic analysis. Secondly,the theoretical arguments support the existence of the welfare state not only for well known equity reasons but also - and powerfully - in efficiency terms.

there is an efficiency case for an institutional welfare state.

Unless the countries of East Asia are very different, rising incomes and the weakening of extended family ties will lead to demands for rising social expenditure.

The European Commission uses an explicit relative poverty line of 60 per cent of national average income.

Money income is a flawed measure of individual welfare.

It is the welfare state that has made capitalism, with all its attendant benefits of economic growth, politically feasible...

Thus social insurance, in sharp contrast with actuarial insurance, can cover not only risk but also uncertainty.

Markets can be efficient or inefficient; so can governments. thus market failure is a counterpoint to government failure.

We need a welfare state of some sort for efficiency reasons, and would continue to do so even if all distributional problems were solved.

A reduction in the liberty of the least well off cannot be justified even if it is to their economic advantage.

A 'socialist' country like Sweden has a highly articulated welfare state; Denmark and New Zealand (which are not highly industrialized) were among the first countries with a public system of old-age pensions; and Saskatchewan was the first Canadian province to have publicly organized health insurance.

The crucial point is that any system of health care must constitute a genuine strategy-ad hoc tinkering is a guaranteed road to disaster.

Perfect competition must hold in product and factor markets, and also (and importantly) in capital markets. The assumption has two essential features: economic agents must be price takers; and they must have equal power.

It has been argued that relatively poor people will borrow to buy a house, so why not to buy a degree?