Earticle

This paper concerns about the conceptualization and categorization of social services in the viewpoint of economics. We mainly explain the economics model for the justification of public provision of social services base on consumption externality, and propose the definition and categories of social services in our policy environment. Consumption externality is to be considered as ‘the antipathy of the society for the quality difference among the consumers’in service markets. The optimal provision mechanism can be justified as an element in the set of cash aid, public provision, mixed provisions, voucher methods, etc. according to the degree of consumption externality and the minimal affordable level of social welfare. We practically define social services as ‘the personal services that have large consumption externality and need public provision in a social perspective’and categorize social services in the broad sense, in the narrow sense, and in the most narrow sense.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the change process of the preferential purchase system for products of the severely disabled, which is one of the systems in which various policies have been prepared and operated for the employment of the severely disabled in the field of vocational rehabilitation for the disabled by applying a multiple flow model. As a result of the study, during the introduction of the system for preferential purchase of products for the severely disabled, the flow of problems and politics in 2006 led the flow of policy and combined, and when the policy window was opened, a policy product called Special Act on Priority Purchase of Products 「for the Severely Disabled」was created. In the period of policy change since enactment, the policy output is the revised law made six times. Since the revision in 2008, the system has been in operation for 10 years and has had an impact on the policy output until the annual government audit, which points out that the system is not operating properly. It is analyzed that the flow of these issues and the flow of politics led the flow of policy. However, although the combination of these flows produced policy products, the policy leader was not clearly visible. The theoretical implication of this study is that it expands the direction of policy research by applying a multi-flow model and an analytical study on the policy formation and change process in vocational rehabilitation research. It was suggested from the policy level that it is necessary to expand support and products, to clarify the division of roles of each support system, and to have a strong will of the government to improve the system.