Phil Haynes, head of the School of Applied Social Science, will deliver a lecture at an international conference hosted by the National Chi Nan University, Taiwan. The conference will be held on Wednesday 14 October and is entitled 'The impact of the financial crisis on social policy and social work'.
His paper, 'The Economic Recession: how will it change policy and welfare?', will examine the current economic recession and its impact on social and public policy and social welfare.
The presentation will describe how major problems with the developed economies of the West have lead to high government debt in these countries. These debts have been in both private and public organisations, but following the banking crisis of 2008 have moved increasingly to the state and public sector.
This is now resulting in a major debate about the size of the state and public sector and ratio of public expenditure to GDP and how much government debt can be sustained in the West. At the same time the exporting countries of the East (like China, India) have new opportunities to grow their own internal consumption, raise taxation and expand their public sectors.
Given the major problems with global finance, and financial instability, Professor Haynes will discuss the likely effect on different nations' public policy and welfare systems and how policy goals and priorities may change in the next few years.
As part of his trip, Professor Haynes will also speak on the same topic at the National Dong Hwa University in Hualien.
