Increasing costs of public provisions, inadequate funding, ageing populations and growing inequalities impede the functioning of welfare states. Substantivere forms are required, but there is little agreement on what kinds of reforms are required and feasible. This paper examines one notable proposal: asset building from childhood aimed at ensuring universal starting asset ownership. Inadequate asset holding has a profound impact on individual well-being, autonomy and on social distribution of wealth and opportunity. The focus is on the analysis of the defunct British Child Trust Fund (CTF) scheme which, despite its short existence, still generates significant research interest. Analysis reveals that the scheme was too modest to have a more significant long-term impact. Building upon the CTF scheme, the paper argues for a more comprehensive asset scheme which, considering its foreseeable costs, should be developed as a society-wide platform that would interconnect and coordinate the efforts of existing saving, investment and social entrepreneurial schemes.
Emil Vargović (Wed,) studied this question.