Academic literature on the topic 'Welfare state – canada – history'

This article examines the legacy of American and Canadian welfare state development to explain surprisingly comparable levels of child care provision. It highlights the ironies of policy history while demonstrating the importance of ideas as independent causal factors in the development of public policies and the effect of their institutionalization on future policy development. Maternalist, nativist, and eugencist imperatives led U.S. governments to intrude in areas normally considered part of the private sphere and led to the adoption of policies to respond to a perceived decline primarily of the White population. These policies provided a normative and institutional basis for future government involvement in child care funding and programs, even after the conditions that led to the original policies changed. In Canada, the lack of large-scale entrenchment of similar ideas constrained an otherwise more interventionist government and made it more difficult for child care policies to find governmental and societal acceptance.

When it comes to the links between taxation and social policy, the growth of the welfare state, funded by income tax, is the obvious starting point. But in Give and Take, Tillotson goes far beyond the obvious. In her hands, the tax system has complex “welfare effects.” Looking through the tax lens, Tillotson gives us fresh perspectives on the origins, politics, and consequences of social welfare programs, as well as the negotiation of social citizenship rights and obligations. In this essay, I also suggest Give and Take points us towards a relatively unexplored set of questions about the history of social policy in twentieth-century Canada, namely how the tax system and especially tax expenditures have been used to achieve social policy objectives.

From a Canadian perspective, this article provides a comparative historical and contemporary overview of foundations in Canada, in relation to the United States and Germany. For the purposes of this analysis, the study was limited to public or private foundations in Canada, as defined by the Income Tax Act. As the Canadian foundation milieu straddles the welfare partnership model that characterizes German civil society and the Anglo-Saxon model of the United States, Canadian foundations as a whole have much in common with the foundation sector in both countries. Similarities include the number of foundations per capita, a similar range in size and influence, a comparable diversity of foundation types, and an explosion in the number of foundations in recent decades (although the United States has a much longer history of large foundations making high-impact interventions). This analysis also highlights some key differences among larger foundations in the three jurisdictions: German foundations are generally more apt to have a change-orientation and are more vigorous in their disbursement of income and assets. U.S. foundations are more likely to play a welfare-replacement role in lieu of inaction by the state. Canadian foundations play a complementary role, particularly in the areas of education and research, health, and social services. At the same time, there is a segment of Canadian foundations that are fostering innovation, social and policy change, and are embarking on meaningful partnerships and acts of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

The legalization of gambling and cannabis and the transformation of these practices/substances into consumer markets are processes of state legitimation, naturalization, and (re)formation in Canada. This article examines the moral-cultural transformation of gambling and cannabis over the last 50 years and analyzes these transformations in terms of state-culture dynamics. Where lotteries were legalized in the context of the welfare state, the expansion of gambling beyond lotteries in the 1990s has occurred as the federal state ceded jurisdiction of gambling to the provinces. The consequence has been the direct role of the provinces in the creation of gambling markets. Notwithstanding the monopolization of cannabis by some provinces, the opening of cannabis to private industry (e.g., sales) has occurred relatively quickly. In its central role in market making, the state, paradoxically, appears to disappear. However, the legalization and expansion of gambling and cannabis represent an increased positioning of the state at the nexus of civic and consumer cultures. State formation around consumption of gambling and cannabis centers on state entrepreneurialism and depends on retaining, yet reinventing, notions of harm with a shift from a generalized morality of nation and national spirit to individual risk calculation.

In the last decades, OECD countries witnessed more than one way of designing students’ aid policies, under a predominant trend of decentralizing their governance. However, this decentralizing process carried the seeds of its own contradictions. The central paradox is that these policies remained multi-issue and multi-actor, making them likely to fall under the double-hand of different governmental levels. Federal countries constitute a laboratory to study the “decentralization experiment” in its absurdity. For this reason, the PhD project proposes a comparison between two federal cases (i.e. the United States and Canada), and in time (between 1930 and 2018), using a mixed-method. The analysis is also extended in a discussion of four embedded deviant case studies (Alaska, New York, Prince Edward Island and Quebec). Albeit usually simplified as paradigmatic cases for liberal, elitist, loan-oriented and tightfisted aid systems, the United States and Canada have proved to be more generous over student aid than what is expected from their respective welfare regime. Nevertheless, behind this engagement, I uncover an intergovernmental contention of powers and responsibilities embedded within deeply rooted federal institutions. With a focus on federal structures and dynamics, I also reveal potential political and economic incentives behind student aid. Beyond the common belief that students’ aid exists solely to help students, the thesis shows how these policies might be more grounded in institutional factors than student- related considerations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the series of events and legislation that has led to the current system of welfare and wealth redistribution in the United State. I begin with a background of the origins of the welfare state in England and the United States, and discuss the social movements which gave rise to the modern welfare state. I discuss how wars, economic theories, and recessions have influenced policy, and how such policy has affected poverty and unemployment rates since the Great Depression. I have found that social welfare spending has steadily increased since the Great Depression, and that the current trend of deficit spending and expansion of the social safety-net is a product of the legislation passed during the Great Depression and the ‘Great Society’ of the 1960s. Although there have been many attempts to secure a minimum standard of living through social welfare spending, the problems of poverty and unemployment persist.

This thesis shows the build-up of a society in the golden days of the welfare state of Sweden. Stråssa, a small society built up around one big employer – the mine, owned by the Grängesbergsbolaget – is used as a case-study, put in the larger perspective of the welfare state and its values. The mine was re-opened in 1959 and the research period is 1949-1965. This research has three layers, (1) the welfare state (2) the municipality and the company and (3) the citizens.  The research shows how the foundry spirit lives longer than expected in the welfare state during a period when the municipality has gotten great responsibilities by the state. Here the municipality and the citizens still have expectations on the big employer of the area to finance the build-up, both regarding the housing- and the leisure time-questions, responsibilities that were put on the municipalities under this era.

The New Right's critique of the welfare state has generated considerable interest in the history of alternative forms of welfare provision. Recent work has focused upon the continued existence of voluntarism alongside the growth of twentieth century state welfare. In doing this, it has reacted against the tendency of post-war social welfare writing to concentrate exclusively on the statutory social services. This thesis, therefore, adds to a growing body of writing on inter-war voluntary social action. However, it differs from the work of others by focusing upon the interplay of voluntary and statutory sectors in the face of war, industrial unrest and mass unemployment: in other words the upheavals of the early twentieth century. The main body of the research not only deals with the part played by both sectors in the delivery of social services, but also places voluntarism in a wider social context by exploring its ideological response to working-class assertiveness. Indeed, the belief in a British national community with interests that transcended class or sectional divisions was a common feature in voluntarism's attitude towards the above challenges and their implications for social stability. Thus, by highlighting the class objectives of the middle-class volunteer, this thesis avoids treating voluntary groups as simply the deliverers of social services in partnership with the state. As middle-class organisations operating within civil society, the charities covered in the pages ahead are placed alongside the state and capital in the defence of the existing economic and social order. Differences may have existed amongst charities over the correct mix in the statutory-voluntary welfare mix, but, as this thesis seeks to prove, this should not blind us to voluntarism's commitment to an over riding class interest.

Abstract. Dyvosvit University of the Third Age is a joint project of the Department of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of Uman City Council and Pavlo Tychyna Uman Pedagogical University. The main goal is to implement the principle of lifelong learning of elderly people and support physical, psychological, and social abilities. Its task is to provide educational services, attract the elderly to an active social life, preserve their physical, mental, and spiritual health, learn the history of their native land, information technology, etc. The University hosts: the Faculty of Local History Education and Organization of Recreation and Tourism; the Faculty of Humanities and Law Education; the Faculty of Applied and Decorative Arts; the Faculty of Folk Singing; the Faculty of Computer Competence. The provision of such an educational service should ensure: arrangement of conditions for and promotion of holistic development of elderly people; reintegration of elderly people into the active life of society; assistance to elderly people in adapting to modern living conditions by mastering new knowledge, in particular on the ageing process and its features; modern methods of preserving health; acquisition of self-help skills; shaping of the principles of a healthy lifestyle; the framework legislation regarding elderly people and its application in practice; shaping and development of skills for using the latest technologies, primarily information and communication technologies; potential and opportunities for volunteer work; improving the quality of life of elderly people by providing them with access to state-of-the-art technologies and adapting them to technological transformations; development of practical skills; opportunity to expand communication and exchange experience. Keywords: social service, elderly people, lifelong learning, university of the third age.

Abstract Since the invention of the first electrified, self-propelled rail vehicles by Siemens & Halske in 1879 followed by the pioneering innovations of Frank Sprague starting in 1886, self-propelled, passenger, electric traction rail vehicles have evolved into an amazing variety of use cases, shapes and sizes to the present date. With the amelioration of each generation, the electrical and mechanical engineering disciplines have developed a high degree of cooperation and integration to what has evolved into a seamless systems approach that allows agencies and railroads to enjoy record breaking, yet safe commuter and short-haul passenger railroad service with an array of amenities and technical advancements. The core of these rail vehicles are and were humble looking Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) (also referred to as Multiple Unit (MU)) trains that unceremoniously ply the rails around major cities with hundreds of daily riders on board. These otherwise, non-descript vehicles often have mundane identifications such as “MP-54” or “M-9.” Once in a while, one of these workhorses garners brief notoriety that leads to a full name such as “Metroliner.” But these full names, more often than not, are simply duplicated by analogy much in the same way the term “Watergate” has been overused. The identification of each fleet and the uniqueness / advancements that each have brought to the passenger rail industry since 1904 is the goal of this paper series. This paper is the first in a short series that will present a simple historic review of the electric, self-propelled railroad vehicles (EMUs) that were or are currently in service in the United States and Canada. The review begins with the transition away from wooden cars when steel cars were necessary by design. These early cars helped to define the EMU (and MU) benchmark and how they differ from other rail rolling stock of the early 1900s such as elevated / subway cars, interurbans, and locomotive-drawn coach cars. Regulation was part of the progress, but ever-increasingly heavy passenger, mail and cargo loads, tunnel designs and general progress of design evolution helped to define this classification of rolling stock that eventually has folded into the United States-defined FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) Tier 1 passenger fleet. This first paper will begin with a focus on EMUs of the New York State region, starting with Long Island and Westchester, New York branch lines. A future, second history paper will feature equipment from the States of Connecticut and New Jersey. The third history paper will feature equipment serving the cities of Philadelphia and Chicago. And the fourth and final history paper will feature other regions of the United States and Canada.

Canada and Australia are remarkably similar countries. Characteristics such as geography, politics, native land issues, and population are notably similar, while the climate may be considered the most obvious difference between the two countries. The pipeline industries are similar as well, but yet very different in some respects too. This presentation will explore some of the similarities and differences between the pipeline industries in both countries. The focus of the discussion will be mainly on long-distance, cross-country gas transmission pipelines. The author of this paper spent 4 years working for TransCanada PipeLines in Calgary in a pipeline design and construction capacity, and has spent 2.5 years working for an engineering consultant firm, Egis Consulting Australia, in a variety of roles on oil and gas projects in Australia. Topics to be addressed include the general pipeline industry organisation and the infrastructure in both countries. The history of the development of the pipeline industry in each country provides insight as to why each is organised the way it is today. While neither system is “better” than the other, there are certain advantages to Canada’s system (nationally regulated) over Australia’s system (currently state-regulated). The design codes of each country will be compared and contrasted. The pipeline design codes alternate in level of detail and strictness of requirements. Again, it cannot be said that one is “better” than the other, although in some cases one country’s code is much more useful than the other for pipeline designers. Construction techniques affected by the terrain and climate in each country will be explored. Typical pipeline construction activities are well known to pipeliners all over the globe: clear and grade, trench, string pipe, weld pipe, coat welds, lower in, backfill and clean up. The order of these activities may change, depending on the terrain and the season, and the methods of completing each activity will also depend on the terrain and the season, however the principles remain the same. Australia and Canada differ in aspects such as climate, terrain and watercourse type, and therefore each country has developed methods to handle these issues. Finally, some of the current and future opportunities for the 21st century for the pipeline industry in both countries will be discussed. This discussion will include items such as operations and maintenance issues, Canada’s northern development opportunities, and Australia’s national gas grid possibilities.

Throughout the human history, many leaders such as presidents, kings, sultans, emirs, shahs, and khans have lived. Looking back to the age of globalization, it is evident that leaders with global qualities and encompassing capabilities were few. Zahirad-Din Muhammad Babur Shah Ghazi stands out as aleader with developed personality, strategic genius, beautiful moral character, superior talents, fair governance of different elements, ruling with justice, avoiding oppression, developing society, building prosperous cities, and embodying virtues like love and mercy. Babur Shah is the founder of the Muslim Turk-Hind Empire that sustained a great civilization on the lands of India for centuries, altering the fate and history of Asia. In the age of globalization, human relationships, intercultural interactions, coexistence of differences, and the rise of multicultural societies have led humanity to a new era. Centuries ago, Babur Shah arrived from Transoxiana to the Indian subcontinent, confronting the realities of the age of globalization and governing people of different religions, races, cultures, and affiliations with peace and justice. He developed society, spread prosperity, established a welfare state, and stayed away from exploitation. He did not transfer the country's resources elsewhere, nor did hesteal or take anything for himself; instead, he invested and utilized the gains, resources, and wealth in service to those lands. He can be seen as a global leader and exemplar for humanity and societies living in the age of globalization.

With shifting paradigms in usual climatic events and increased occurrence of flood hazards, vulnerability assessment and adaptation of road infrastructure is essential. Road pavements are critical in sustaining socio-economic activities and their vulnerability to flood hazards could have serious cost consequences. Therefore, a conscientious decision to consider pavement materials, designs and alternatives that are resilient to recurring flood events is desired. Based on previous investigations into how pavements types, classes and configuration respond to extreme events, concrete pavements are reported as better flood-resilient systems in countries that have experienced intense flooding and inundation. Although Canada has experienced some of the worst flood incidences in history and owns a number of concrete pavement infrastructure, no study has been conducted to better understand its performance under extreme conditions. To provide insight on concrete pavement flood response, the use of the state of the art AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design (PMED) program is employed to model various flood scenarios on concrete pavement types and configurations common to two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Manitoba. The performance of the various pavement classes in terms of flood resilience, service life and cost feasibility is analyzed and results provide insight on the resilience and adaptive capacity of rigid pavements to flood hazards in Canada.

Both academia and popular culture have neglected the movement of Scandinavian Postmodern architecture (ca. 1975-1990), a tradition eclipsed by Modernism as the prevailing aesthetic and social project in Scandinavia. In light of the last decade of Postmodernism’s resurgence in the architectural academy globally, and recent uses of Postmodern architectural principles by right-wing movements in Europe, it is a crucial time to revisit this obscured regional Postmodernism. The movement of Scandinavian Postmodern architecture coincided with political shifts in the region which were supported by both the right and left of the political spectrum causing a shared space of conflict and imagination. The political dimensions of Scandinavian Postmodernism will be explored primarily through a close reading of Danish Postmodern Architect and Writer Ernst Lohse’s 1986 manifesto “Our Construction Should be Based in the Irrational” (translated into English for the first time for this paper), where, despite Lohse’s own sympathy for the environmental movement, he adopts familiar conservative rhetoric, bemoaning the loss of Western culture and the limitations of the welfare state. This paper will reconstruct the obscured history of Scandinavian Postmodernism, using the case of Ernst Lohse to locate discourse that reveals the movement as a site of contention and overlap between diverging political groups and its particular appeal to the conservative imagination.

Because flowing wells are spectacular visual evidence of groundwater occurrence, they became the impetus for both qualitative and quantitative groundwater science. The pursuit of answers to fundamental questions generated by flowing wells in confined aquifers bounded by aquitards moved the science forward for more than a century until pumping became the main form of groundwater development. Since the turn of the 20th century, flowing wells in unconfined aquifers were an impetus for the paradigm shift from aquitard-bound flow to cross-formational flow driven by topography. In this book, the histories of drilling flowing wells in France, the US, Canada, and China—which led to important findings on hydraulics of flowing wells—are summarized. The occurrence of flowing wells in confined aquifers, unconfined aquifers and semi-confined aquifers are demonstrated by showing the corresponding forms of topography-driven groundwater flow from recharge to discharge areas in different aquifers. This book introduces classic models of steady-state and transient discharge rates from flowing wells without considering basinal groundwater flow fields as proposed by Dupuit (1863), Jacob and Lohman (1952), and Hantush (1959). Recent models of transient and steady-state discharge rates of flowing wells that consider basinal groundwater flow fields—which led to a clear understanding of sources of water derived in flowing wells—are also introduced. By providing a comprehensive description of flowing wells, this book is useful not only to understanding hydraulics of flowing wells, but also to understanding the history of groundwater science.

Discussions of migration and urbanization in Canada and many other nations typically focus on the experiences of individuals. By doing so, the importance of their family relationships and circumstances may be overlooked. A failure to account for broader family networks has wellbeing consequences for both the people who migrate and/or move to urban locations and their family members who have stayed behind. Beyond the individual-level focus, policies related to migration are usually developed as population-level initiatives. This means that families that are considered vulnerable or at-risk due to certain health and/or demographic factors can remain unnoticed and their special needs unaccounted for. The experiences of these families during migration and urbanization merit greater attention so that policy makers and support services can ensure more equitable opportunities and better family wellbeing outcomes. This paper explores migration and urbanization in Canada in relation to family wellbeing with attention to two at-risk population groups: families with a member who has a disability and families that identify as Indigenous. Both groups experience exclusion, that is, systematic actions resulting in being overlooked, ignored, and at-risk. Indigenous families have endured a long history of colonialism, racism, and oppression (Saul, 2014), resulting in a legacy of grievous harm to families and the chronic underfunding of support services such as healthcare, housing, and child welfare (Government of Canada, 2018a; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). Families in which there is a member with a disability1 require ready access to affordable healthcare and related services to ensure appropriate support, which is linked to the wellbeing of all family members.

On behalf of the Happiness University Network, we are pleased to present here an extract of the information concerning the universities working to generate the diffusion of this network. Specifically, with the support of the University of Salamanca and the Pontifical University of Salamanca the aim is to create a friendly and working environment for the dissemination and discussion of the latest scientific and practical developments in the fields of happiness economics, corporate wellbeing, happiness management and organisational communication. It also offers an opportunity for productive encounters, the promotion of collaborative projects and the encouragement of international networking. Below you will find papers related to: Economics of happiness, happiness management, organisational communication, welfare state economics, consumer happiness, leadership, social marketing, happiness management and SDGs, happiness management in human resource strategies, learning and competencies in happiness management, learning and competencies in social well-being, measurement and indicators of happiness and well-being and history of welfare economics.

In the article investigational three magazines which went out after Second World war in Germany and Austria in the environment of the Ukrainian emigrants, is «Theater» (edition of association of artists of the Ukrainian stage), «Student flag» (a magazine of the Ukrainian academic young people is in Austria), «Young friends» (a plastoviy magazine is for senior children and youth). The thematic structure of magazines, which is inferior the association of different on age, is considered, by vital experience and professional orientation of people in the conditions of the forced emigration, paid regard to graphic registration of magazines, which, without regard to absence of the proper publisher-polydiene bases, marked structuralness and expressiveness. A repertoire of periodicals of Ukrainian migration is in the American, English and French areas of occupation of Germany and Austria after Second world war, which consists of 200 names, strikes the tipologichnoy vseokhopnistyu and testifies to the high intellectual level of the moved persons, desire of yaknaynovishe, to realize the considerable potential in new terms with hope on transference of the purchased experience to Ukraine. On ruins of Europe for two-three years the network of the press, which could be proud of the European state is separately taken, is created. Different was a period of their appearance: from odnogo-dvokh there are to a few hundred numbers, that it is related to intensive migration of Ukrainians to the USA, Canada, countries of South America, Australia. But indisputable is a fact of forming of conceptions of newspapers and magazines, which it follows to study, doslidzhuvati and adjust them to present Ukrainian realities. Here not superfluous will be an example of a few editions on the thematic range of which the names – «Plastun» specify, «Skob», «Mali druzi», «Sonechko», «Yunackiy shliah», «Iyzhak», «Lys Mykyta» (satire, humour), «Literaturna gazeta», «Ukraina і svit», «Ridne slovo», «Hrystyianskyi shliah», «Golos derzhavnyka», «Ukrainskyi samostiynyk», «Gart», «Zmag» (sport), «Litopys politviaznia», «Ukrains’ka shkola», «Torgivlia i promysel», «Gospodars’ko-kooperatyvne zhyttia», «Ukrainskyi gospodar», «Ukrainskyi esperantist», «Radiotehnik», «Politviazen’», «Ukrainskyi selianyn» Considering three riznovektorni magazines «Teatr» (edition of Association Mistciv the Ukrainian Stage), «Studentskyi prapor» (a magazine of the Ukrainian academic young people is in Austria), «Yuni druzi» (a plastoviy magazine is for senior children and youth) assert that maintenance all three magazines directed on creation of different on age and by the professional orientation of national associations for achievement of the unique purpose – cherishing and maintainance of environments of ukrainstva, identity, in the conditions of strange land. Without regard to unfavorable publisher-polydiene possibilities, absence of financial support and proper encouragement, release, followed the intensive necessity of concentration of efforts for achievement of primary purpose – receipt and re-erecting of the Ukrainian State.

The year 1960 is often presented as a break year in the economic history of Quebec and Canada. It is used to mark the beginning of the “Quiet Revolution” during which Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec under rapid socio-economic change in the form of rapid economic convergence with the rest of Canada and the emergence of a more expansive state. Using synthetic control methods, we analyze whether 1960 is associated with a departure from previous developments. With regards to GDP per capita, GDP per worker, household-size adjusted income, life expectancy at birth, and enrollment rates in primary and secondary schools, we find that 1960 was not an important date. For most of these measures, the counterfactual scenario is slightly better than the actual data but not by significant margins. Only with respect to the size of government do we find sign of a break.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3

It is conventional wisdom that: Continued fast growth in the BRICS will result in a rapid catch-up to match and even surpass Western income levels in the next few decades The crisis in Europe will soon be over and normal growth will then resume as if nothing had happened The tax competition resulting from globalization means a race to the bottom in which corporate tax rates fall dramatically everywhere The best way to escape the poverty trap is to give the poor more money Losers from globalization can be ignored by politicians in western democracies because they do not matter for electoral outcomes The adjustment problems for developing countries arising from the crisis are quite minor and easy to deal with Actually, as Reversals of Fortune shows, all of these beliefs are highly questionable. The research findings reported here provide economic analysis and evidence that challenge these claims. In the report, Nicholas Crafts asks: "What Difference does the Crisis make to Long-term West European Growth?" Vera Troeger considers "The Impact of Globalisation and Global Economic Crises on Social Cohesion and Attitudes towards Welfare State Policies in Developed Western Democracies." Stephen Broadberry looks at "The BRICs: What does Economic History say about their Growth Prospects?" Sharun Mukand takes "The View from the Developing World: Institutions, Global Shocks and Economic Adjustment." Finally, Sayantan Ghosal has a new perspective on "The Design of Pro-poor Policies."

Why do the new economy and welfare societies recommend a new station on the long journey towards competitiveness initiated within the framework of “The Competitive Advantage of Nations”, published as long as 25 years ago? A little more than twenty-five years ago, the Basque Country decided to equip itself with its own development strategy, undertaking to meet the challenge of designing its own future. The Basque Country aspired to give itself the maximum degree of self-government as a nation without a State, following its release from a long dictatorship which had plunged it into autarchy and isolation from the Western democracies around it, limiting its ability and responsibility to shape its own destiny and to offer its Society the highest standards of welfare, facing one of the greatest economic, political and social crises of its history and suffering from the ravages of terrorism within an economy castigated by soaring unemployment above 25%, a drop in its GDP, the fall, like dominoes, of its key industrial sectors, locked into the monoculture of the steel and metal working industry, outside the Europe which was being constructed by the then Economic Community of the Six, marginalized as a peripheral area from the future axis and development of the so-called “blue banana” of the London-Milan backbone and with an incipient and inexperienced administration, full of youth and enthusiasm, and a business world undergoing conversion, learning to live with a trade union phenomenon that the former dictatorship had bypassed. Faced with this complex and exciting challenge, those of us who had the privilege of addressing the aforementioned proposal, interpreting (by means of our analyses, as well as the wish to make our desires and dreams come true) the main keys to explain the state of the world economy, the main trends of change and their foreseeable impact on the Basque economy (“What the world economy taught us”), began the task of defining what we call “A strategy for the modernization and internationalization of our economy and our Country” trying to give some meaning to the role expected of the new players (States, city-regions, provinces, etc.), a role in which our small Country, with features of a City-Region, a sub-national entity, an invertebrate area on the two sides of the Pyrenees, could assume the figure of co-protagonist and provide society with a prosperous future. We also needed the framework and tools desirable for tackling the success strategy. We identified the gap between the needs that would be generated by the new paradigms and the tools offered by the existing political-economic framework (contents, skills, potential developments), accompanied by our own Country-strategy, with special emphasis on the initiatives, factors and critical vectors our society would demand and its aspirations for well-being and development. Within this context, the Basque Government approached Michael E. Porter, his ideas and concepts of the moment, and we began a collaborative process (which lasts until this day), constructing much more than our “Competitive Advantage of the Basque Country” in a thrilling and unfinished “Journey towards Competitiveness and Prosperity”. The Basque Country enjoys the privilege of having been the first nation to apply, in a strategic and comprehensive manner, the concepts which, a few years later, came to light in the prestigious publication we celebrate today, titled “The Competitive Advantage of Nations”, which has inspired the design of numerous policies and strategies throughout the world, which has brought about a proliferation of followers, which has trained instructors and which has generated a large number of new researchers and academics, new policy makers, new instruments for competitiveness and extraordinary levels of prosperity throughout the world. Since then, we have shared our own particular project which, alive and changing, responds to the new economic and social challenges and conflicts by constructing and applying a Country strategy with distinctive achievements and results beyond our economic environment. It lies within the conceptual framework inspired by the complementary tripod of Michael E. Porter's conceptual movement in his Competitive Advantage (Competitiveness, Shared Value Initiative and Social Progress) and our contributions learned from day to day in keeping with our vocation, identity, will and commitment. It is a never-ending process based on a model and a way of understanding the former pledge to give ourselves a single strategy designed by and for people.