Social Politics and Economics of Social Protection

Course Tutors

Pierrakos George

Course Outline

The course is a special scientific field that includes the high-level specialised concepts of economics, health policies and social protection, as well as the principles and methods of social planning.

The curriculum of the course aims firstly to form an integrated field of knowledge for students in such a way as to fully understand the relationship of economic development and social well-being, the methods of achieving maximisation of social income and productive efficiency as well as the way government decisions are made regarding the determination of public revenues and public spending with an emphasis on social spending and the stabilisation of the economy.

Secondly, it aims to create awareness of the economic optimisation of the efficiency of social services and enterprises in the public and private health and social care sectors.

The conceptual scope of redistributive economic justice, the causative factors of phenomena that shape the social situation and health of the population, the post-theory of social security and the limits of the effectiveness of transfer payments, working conditions, inequalities and social discrimination, facilitate students in ranking methods, priorities and alternative proposals for health and social protection programmes and systems and carrying out their systematic evaluation.

The overall methodological framework of the course and the acquisition of knowledge by the students, aims to shape the socio-economic thinking of the students in order to:

Firstly, be able to formulate, implement and evaluate social planning programmes for health and social care systems at macro level (national and regional) under budgetary constraints and scarce resources. 

Secondly, understand the applied socio-economic methodology (social policy) so that social planning can be carried out in the health and social care sector, considering the interlinkages of the interdependent causal parameters of demographic, epidemiology, employment and social security systems.

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• Understand the need to implement redistributive economic justice and how to meet basic social needs and in particular health and social care needs
• Understand the impact of macroeconomic and fiscal developments on the development of the social protection system as well as the interaction of the economy and social policy
• Analyse the state budget and identify the limits of the effectiveness of the benefit policy
• Develop tax or other economic redistributive justice techniques
• Assess the scope and specific characteristics of social-economic inequalities and design social cohesion measures
• Balance the financing needs of the social protection system and the competitiveness of the Greek economy
• Understand the drivers of demographic developments and demographic data in forming social spending
• Distinguish the different levels of reform interventions in developed and least developed countries under the scarcity of resources and the level of human development
• To develop via modern socio-economic theoretical analyses new methods for the identification of health needs through demography and health indicators
• Propose and design health and social care policies and be able to develop and evaluate the stages of implementation of social protection programmes.