| Abstract In reply to Jörg Märkt and Gerhard Schick in this
volume, this paper argues for a different view on social assistance and migration. First,
this article will present some methodological conditions for constitutional contracts.
Lacking empirical test-ability, the method of constitutional economics particularly needs
the revelation of constitu-tional interests before evaluating alternative rules. By
testing the described alternative rules of migration in the fact of potential
constitutional interests, it will be shown that no rule dis-cussed meets all targets. The
reader has to be aware that Märkt/Schick decided to meet the target of free migration for
welfare recipients and thereby missed some essential targets of so-cial assistance. In
this paper it is questioned, if the objective of free migration for welfare recipients is
as important as it looks at first glance. It is argued that liberty as a constitutional
interest can be restricted by ra-tional constitutional voters. Behind the veil of
uncertainty it might be necessary to limit the external diseconomy from free-riding
welfare recipients in social assistance schemes or the external diseconomy from the poor
in the utility-interdependence sense. If the reader comes to share this point of view,
there is no need to harm the original constitutional interests related to social
assistance.
JEL-Klassifikation: B 40; F 22; I 30 |
