ANALYSIS OF THE EFFICIENCY OF THE WELFARE STATE SPENDING: TURKEY AND EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Education, health and social protection expenditures, the total of which is considered as welfare state spending, are public expenditures with national significance in current times. Despite the neoliberal policies that have been prevalent in the global scale since the 1980s, it was observed that welfare state spending and related state interventions have not decreased and even continued to increase along with social changes. Adequate use public spending without squandering is important for economic wealth as well as the amount of public spending. In the present study, the efficiency of welfare state spending in European countries and Turkey was compared with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Cluster analysis was conducted to ensure the homogeneity of the decision-making units among the analyzed nations. Based on the DEA findings for the first cluster, it was determined that Ireland had the lowest efficiency score and an improvement of 65.11% and 45.86% was suggested in Employment and the share of lowest 10% in GDP variables. In the second cluster, Romania had the lowest efficiency score. Turkey, on the other hand, ranked 10th among 16 countries in efficiency ranking. The most referenced nation in this group was Portugal.

REFAH DEVLETĠ HARCAMALARININ ETKĠNLĠĞĠNĠN DEĞERLENDĠRĠLMESĠ: TÜRKĠYE VE AVRUPA ÜLKELERĠ

Refah devleti harcamaları olarak tabir edilen eğitim, sağlık ve sosyal koruma harcamaları günümüzde ülkeler için son derece önemli olan kamu harcamalarıdır. 1980‟lerden itibaren dünya genelinde uygulanan neoliberal politikalara rağmen refah devleti harcamalarının ve bu konudaki devlet müdahalelerinin azalmadığı hatta yaĢanan toplumsal değiĢimlerle birlikte artmaya devam ettiği gözlenmektedir. Kamu harcamalarının miktarı kadar israf edilmeden amacına uygun Ģekilde kullanılması da ekonomik refah için önem arz etmektedir. Bu çalıĢmada Avrupa ülkeleri ve Türkiye‟nin refah devleti harcamalarının etkinliği Veri Zarflama Analizi (VZA) kullanılarak karĢılaĢtırılmıĢtır. ÇalıĢma kapsamındaki ülkelere öncelikle karar verme birimlerinin homojenliğinin sağlanması amacıyla kümeleme analizi uygulanmıĢtır. Birinci küme için uygulanan VZA bulgularına göre, Ġrlanda‟nın en düĢük etkinlik skoruna sahip ülke olduğu görülmüĢ ve etkin olabilmesi için Ġstihdam ile Milli gelirden en az pay alan %10‟luk kesim değiĢkenlerinde sırası ile %65,11 ve %45,86 oranında geliĢme sağlaması önerilmiĢtir. Ġkinci kümede ise, Romanya en düĢük etkinlik skoruna sahip olan ülke olmuĢtur. Türkiye ise etkinlik sıralamasında 16 ülke arasında 10. sırada konumlandığı gözlenmiĢtir. Bu grupta en çok referans gösterilen ülke ise Portekiz‟dir.

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