ABSTRACT
The last decade has witnessed a fundamental reappraisal of the economic value of social policy that has come from two directions. The first was the paradigm shift from the welfare state to the social investment state in the social policy scholarship of advanced economies. The second was the transition from the neoliberal Washington Consensus to more inclusive growth policy frameworks in development studies. The shift to understanding welfare as investment began around the turn of the century in Britain and Europe. While the demise of the Keynesian welfare regime had been the object of varied analyses for some time, the perception of a 'new welfare state settlement' or 'paradigm shift' founded on a social investment approach is relatively recent. The strength of the social investment approach is its successful redefinition of key social service expenditures as investments in human capital something entirely lacking in the Titmuss and Marshall tradition discussed in the Introduction to this book.
