Economic and Social Rights: Obstacle to Growth or Handmaiden of Growth?

该项目的一个核心组成部分是完善和合并年度和纵向国际社会和经济权利实现指数，即SERF指数。该项目的第二部分利用创建的SERF指数来解决三个经验问题。 第一，在履行经济和社会权利义务与经济增长之间是否存在权衡？第二，有些政策是否同时促进经济和社会权利义务的履行和经济增长？ 第三，政府履行《经济、社会、文化权利国际公约》义务的成功（或失败）在多大程度上取决于直接的经济、社会和文化权利支出、增加收入的能力以及两者之间的相互作用？ 横截面和时间序列计量经济学技术用于解决前两个问题，而案例研究用于解决第三个问题。《经济、社会、文化权利国际公约》（ICESCR）在法律上规定各国有义务最大限度地利用现有资源实现其中所列的权利。 这就转化为一种逐步实现的义务，根据这种义务，每个国家的义务程度因其资源能力而异。在该项目中创建的SERF指数将逐步实现这一标准付诸实施。

A central component of this project is the refinement and consolidation of an annual and longitudinal international social and economics rights fulfillment index, a SERF Index. The second component of this project utilizes the created SERF Index to address three empirical questions. First, is there a trade-off between meeting economic and social rights obligations and economic growth? Second, do some policies simultaneously foster the fulfillment of economic and social rights obligations and economic growth? Third, to what extent does a government's success (or failure) to meet obligations under the ICESCR depend on direct ESR expenditures, the ability to raise revenues, and the interplay between the two? Cross-sectional and time-series econometric techniques are used to address the first two questions, while case studies are used to address the third. The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) legally obligates countries to fulfill the rights enumerated therein to the maximum of available resources. This translates to an obligation of progressive realization, under which the level of obligation on each country differs according to its resource capacity. The SERF Index created in this project operationalizes this standard of progressive realization.