BARTLETT W. - Economic and Social Disparities (20h)
The course provides an overview of theories and empirics of social and economic disparities in Europe. It describes different types of disparities in income, wealth, and opportunities broadly defined; it reviews the main economic and political determinants of disparities (e.g. globalisation, automation, financialisation, declining power of labour unions) to then consider their individual, macroeconomic and political implications from subjective well-being to lower social cohesion, reduced social mobility, weakened trust in political institutions and populism. Finally, it considers possible institutional responses to rising social and economic disparities both at the domestic and European Union (EU) level in a context of state capture and dysfunctional government policies. They include national fiscal measures either in the form of short-term income support or the re-organisation and re-financing of educational systems, as well as a range of EU instruments and policies from temporary tools such the European instrument for Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) and the EU Youth Guarantee to long-term Structural and Cohesion policies financed via the EU Budget.
Professor Will BARTLETT