Resolute policy action to protect households and businesses has mitigated the pandemic’s toll on the Swedish economy, which nevertheless contracted sharply in 2020. Growth is picking up on the back of strong manufacturing activity and exports, while vaccination brings hope for a gradual return to normality in sectors requiring face-to-face interaction.

An engaging, solutions-oriented look at how cities and nations can better navigate issues of innovation and inequality. From San Francisco to Shanghai, many of the world's most innovative places are highly unequal, with the benefits going to a small few. Rather than simply asking how we can create more high-tech cities and nations, Innovation for the Masses focuses on places that manage to foster innovation while also delivering the benefits more widely and equally. In this book, economist Neil Lee draws on case studies of Taiwan, Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland to set out how innovation can be successfully balanced toward equity. As high-tech economies around the world suffer from polarized labor markets and political realities that lock in these problems, this book looks beyond the United States to other models of distributing a leading-edge economy. Lee emphasizes the active role of the state in creating frameworks to ensure that benefits are broadly shared, and he reveals that strong policies for innovation and shared prosperity are mutually reinforcing. Ultimately, Innovation for the Masses provides a vital window into alternative models that prioritize equity, the roadblocks these models present, and what other countries can learn from them going forward.

Social equity is a pillar of public service. Thus, social equity should be a central concern in public management in practice and scholarship. However, widespread incorporation and reflection of social equity practices in government and the anticipated public benefits still seem like an elusive goal. The ability to analytically assess social equity is the first step toward prescribing social equity reforms. Public affairs graduate programs, like a master’s in public administration or public policy, often teach public management separately from social equity. This book empirically and theoretically bridges social equity and public management for use in the public affairs graduate classroom. The book highlights international research that leverages public management theory to build reasonable social equity measures and applications. The research highlighted in the text includes studies from across countries in North and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. This is the first book specifically designed for global public affairs classrooms that connects public management theory and practice with social equity reforms.

This book serves as a comprehensive reference for conducting political analyses of emerging welfare systems in the Global South. These countries have adopted a development-oriented approach, distinct from the social policy trajectory observed in industrialized capitalist states. However, the pervasive influence of globalization since the 1990s has significantly reshaped policy priorities in these regions. Notably, political discourse surrounding social policy concepts developed in the Northern capitalist states has gained prominence. Irrespective of the geographical focus of the chapters, the book delves into fundamental social policy concepts and debates. These include the ongoing discourse between "universalism" and "selectivity," the challenges posed by the welfare residuum, the intricate role of institutional norms and apparatuses in achieving justice or engendering feelings of shame among social assistance recipients, and the examination of "absolute" and "relative" poverty. Additionally, the book investigates the pendulum shift within social welfare policies, the complex politics surrounding the portrayal of welfare recipients, and the newly established link between poverty and shame. Comprising 12 chapters, the book employs a case study-based approach to test the applicability and universality of social policy theories and concepts. The central focus lies in assessing the adaptability of concepts and theories developed in the Global North to comprehend the intricacies of welfare politics in the Global South. These case studies contribute to theoretical generalizations capable of explaining universal principles that are relevant to both the Global South and North.

Slovak Republic: Selected Issues

Offering in-depth perspectives on factors such as local labour markets, housing and mobility, this book investigates centralization tendencies in Scandinavia and South East Europe that help shape regional development and act as a catalyst to creating regional inequalities.