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Central Bank of Malta public lecture on the Welfare state – Necessity not luxury

On Tuesday 11 September 2018, the Central Bank of Malta hosted a public lecture with the theme Welfare state - Necessity not luxury. 

The lecture was introduced by Dr Aaron Grech, the Bank's Chief Economist, and delivered by Professor Nicholas Barr FRSA. Dr Barr is Professor of Public Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has worked at the World Bank and the IMF, and has been a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Councils on Demographic Shifts and on Ageing Society, and of the governing bodies of HelpAge International and the Pensions Policy Institute. He has authored over twenty books on the welfare state, health finance and the financing of higher education, including books and articles with Nobel prize winner, Peter Diamond. 

In his lecture Dr Barr outlined why countries - in one form or another - have a welfare state, offering four sets of reasons: the need to address market failures; to share risk; to assist economic growth; and to tackle distributional concerns. He then discussed the design of welfare states, considering in turn how different approaches have been taken to deal with income risks in working life and retirement, and addressing health, skills and social risks. Finally the lecture considered how best to combine good welfare state system design with concerns about fiscal sustainability.

This event was the third in a series of public lectures in economics and finance being hosted by the Bank to commemorate its 50th Anniversary.

Presentation delivered by Professor Nicholas Barr