Do Social Rights Affect Social Outcomes?
Abstract: While the United Nations and NGOs are pushing for the introduction of economic, social and cultural rights in most countries, little is known of their consequences. We provide evidence on the effects of introducing three types of social rights into the constitution: the rights to education, health and social security. Employing a large panel covering annual data from 160 countries in the period 1960-2010, we find no robust evidence of positive effects of social rights. We do, however, document adverse medium-term effects on education and inflation.
