LAUSR

The huge quantitative literature on postwar social spending almost entirely neglected war asa possible explanatory factor of social spending dynamics. Given the mass carnage and the enormoussocial needs caused by the Second World War, this is quite astonishing. This article examines for the rsttime, whether, and in what ways, the Second World War affected cross-national differences in public socialspending of 18 Western welfare states over the course of the Golden Age. Using panel regressions, it is foundthat the war strongly affected social spending until the late 1960s.The evidence demonstrates that the SecondWorld War is not simply a temporal watershed structuring different phases of welfare state development, butrather a crucial factor for understanding cross-national differences in welfare efforts and social expendituredynamics in the postwar period.