The Atlantic cites my research on ageing

Idrees Kahloon has just published an insightful piece on ageing in the Atlantic, entitled “A Fine Country for Old Men: Geriatric Americans are hoarding wealth and power”, in which he also cites some of my work:

“According to Tim Vlandas, an Oxford political economist, advanced democracies around the world are reaching the point of “gerontonomia”—his term for a stagnating political economy set up to prioritize elderly citizens. These citizens punish their elected governments for inflation, which lessens the value of savings and pension payments. They are much more tolerant of unemployment, because they no longer work; slow growth, because their wealth has already accumulated; and high public debt, because their descendants will pay it. The result, Vlandas argues, is lower wage growth for those still working, and also worse outcomes for their children, as a result of lower social investment over the course of their lives.”

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Taking stock of Welfare State Determinants: A new approach to assessing robustness in quantitative comparative research

By Michael Ganslmeier (University of Exeter) and Tim Vlandas (University of Oxford). First posted at SPA blog

The growth of quantitative comparative social policy research

Since Wilensky’s seminal work in 1975, the comparative welfare state literature has seen hundreds of quantitative studies exploring why some countries have more generous welfare states than others. Over time, the list of proposed determinants has grown substantially: economic growth and development, partisanship and party politics, globalisation and migration, union strength and economic coordination, political institution and fiscal capacity, and public opinion; to name just a few.

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