Globalisation and the welfare state - A meta-regression analysis

Abstract

The effect of economic globalisation on the welfare state is a widely polarised debate in the scholarly literature. In essence, there are three possible effects of this relationship: economic globalisation increases welfare, decreases welfare or it has no effect. By applying meta-regression analysis to 33 empirical studies, this thesis concludes that globalization have a positive effect on the welfare state, although it is quite small. Moreover, the thesis finds that publication bias is not a problem in this literature. Finally, the findings of the thesis suggest that there is large heterogeneity between studies, and that this heterogeneity can account for much of the variations of the differences between studies.