Vulnerability of Social Institutions

The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test for the vulnerability of social institutions. This paper assesses the vulnerability of social institutions in light of the current crisis, and surveys past episodes, when social institutions faced similar challenges. Public pay-as-you-go pension systems have generally weathered the crisis well, but private pension funds were severely affected by the financial crisis. While health care spending drifted up further in the early part of the crisis, it levelled off in 2010 and 2011, on average in the OECD, for an unprecedented two years with no spending growth. But, in countries hard hit by the crisis public outlays on health care declined considerably. Unemployment insurance expenditure increased during the crisis in most OECD countries. In some countries, spending rose considerably more than the number of unemployed, reflecting an extension or more generous benefits, while in others the increase was considerably smaller, pointing to adequacy problems of those unemployment insurance schemes. Five country case studies focusing on how social institutions absorbed shocks in the more distant past are also examined and lessons are drawn from these experiences.