Том 2 - Тенденции и предизвикателства в развитието на ...

Scandinavian countries), on the basis of the nature of state and state differences,as opposed to the anonymous market forces 76What is noteworthy here is that we are confronted to a number ofclassifications of social models, based on different criteria, but coming tosimilar outcomes. It seems that a typology, based on geographicalculturaldistinction comes to the same models as the one based on politicalfundament. 77No doubt that any classification is abstract and it make sense onlyfrom the perspective of the purpose of scientific modeling. Europeansocial models have been distinguished for the sake of the achievement ofdecent social standards and sustainable economic growth. Comparativeanalysis of social models aims to identify the shortcomings of the differentways to organize welfare states, labor markets, financial systems,corporate governance, firms and industries. This is why K. Aiginger andSapir argue that it is theoretically justified to talk of socio-economicmodels, instead of social models. On the one hand, economic institutionsshape the social welfare system; on the other hand, social welfare rulesand policies affect the performance of economic institutions. The currentsovereign debt crisis in the EU and the Eurozone appeal for tough austeritymeasures, which will necessarily involve high opportunity cost interms of social safety nets and job security. However, this cost and respectivelythe necessity of economic restructuring seems to vary tremendouslyamong nations. Thus, theoretical socio economic modeling mightbe a tool for understanding and explaining the roots of poor and goodeconomic performance not only during the current period of economicslowdown. It could be helpful in explaining the persistence of institutionaland structural changes in different models and in shaping economicpolicies of “short run pains for the long run gains”.From this perspective, we cannot be satisfied by the “national”,“geographical”, or “political”, or the mix of the above criterion set as abasis to distinguish socio economic models. One can bring a number of7677Esping-Andersen G. Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, New Jersey: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990.We will put aside here the inconsistency of adding the Mediterranean model to theLiberal, Corporatist-Statist and Social Democratic models in Esping-Andersen’s classificationand mixing the criteria.98