Cooperation and Political Economic Performance in Affluent Democratic Capitalism

1998/05/01 by Alexander Hicks, Lane Kenworthy · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Local Government Finance and Decentralization #Social Policy and Reform Studies

paper · doi:10.1086/231403

openalex publication_date 1998/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03

Abstract

Research on comparative political economic performance has traditionally followed two separate tracks, one concerned with collective economic gain (growth and efficiency) and the other focused on distribution and redistribution. Cooperative institutions offer a key to understanding cross–national variation among the affluent capitalist democracies in both facets of political economic performance. These institutions cluster along two dimensions: neocorporatism and firm–level cooperation. Pooled time–series analysis for 18 nations over 1960––89 suggests that (1) neocorporatism is a major source of distributive/redistributive policies and outcomes and of several sources of collective gain; (2) firm–level cooperation is a key contributor to economic growth.

Citations

• Social Democracy, Christian Democracy, Constitutional Structure, and the Welfare State
• Central Bank Independence and Macroeconomic Performance: Some Comparative Evidence
• What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data
• Politics, Institutions, and Welfare Spending in Industrialized Democracies, 1960–82
• Still the Century of Corporatism?
• Convergence

Cited by

• Do Social-Welfare Policies Reduce Poverty? A Cross-National Assessment
• Alexander Hicks (sociologist) [wikipedia]