Nicholas Barr

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

“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.”

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

“The welfare state is the outcome of diverse forces over nearly four centuries of developing social policy.”

“Given the external benefits higher education creates, it is efficient that taxpayers subsidies should be a permanent part of the landscape.”

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

“So far as school education is concerned, many of the assumptions necessary for market efficiency fail, the main problems being imperfect information, imperfect capital markets, and external effects.”

“Efficiency advantages and disadvantages are more finely balanced than with health care - one person's 'sign of a civilized society' is another's 'society is going to the dogs'.”

“Education to the extent that it raises an individual's future earnings, increases her future tax payments; in the absence of any subsidy, an individual's investment in education confers a 'dividend' on future taxpayers.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“" there is an efficiency case for an institutional welfare state."”

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

“It is argued that regulators are frequently captured by those whom they are supposed to regulate.”

“In a world of certainty, the welfare state has only a small role.”

“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.”

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