Convergence in social protection across EU countries, 1970-1999

Abstract:

This paper examines the degree of convergence in social protection registered in the European Union during the 1970-99 period. To that end, we use Eurostat data and study the long-run properties of the data set using time series analysis. Our results indicate that there is no evidence of long-run convergence in Social Protection expenditure to GDP ratios. However, we do find evidence of catching-up with respect both to Germany and the EU average for all countries belonging to the EU12, except for Greece.

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