The Welfare States in a United Europe

Despite the creation in Europe of a common economic and monetary union, the convergence towards a unique European Welfare State (EWS) model is not yet in evidence. By applying a ß-Convergence panel data approach on real per-capita welfare expenditure, the paper analyses how the different types of welfare states and country-specific factors are conditioning the convergence of EU member states social policies. Our results suggest that a unique European model toward which the different countries are converging does not exist. Instead, we find evidence of strong heterogeneity among welfare states. While accounting for the sensitivity to national specificity of the earlier literature (Esping-Andersen, 1990), this methodology allows us to understand whether there exists a prospect for constructing a new ‘Transnational European Social Model' (Hay et al., 1999).