We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on the role of time. We use panel data on 49,000 individuals living in Germany from 1992 to 2012 to uncover three empirical relationships. First, life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity of contemporaneous poverty. Second, poverty scars: those who have been poor in the past report lower life ...
This paper examines the added worker effect (AWE), which refers to the increase of labor supply of individuals in response to a sudden financial shock in family income, that is, unemployment of their partner. While previous empirical studies focus on married women's response to those shocks, I explicitly analyze the spillover effects of unemployment on both women and men and I also differentiate according ...
We analyze a client's choice of contract in auctions where Dutch law firms compete for cases. The distinguishing feature is that lawyers may submit bids with any fee arrangement they prefer: an hourly rate, a fixed fee or a \mixed fee," which is a time-capped fixed fee plus an hourly rate for any additional hours should the case take longer than expected. This format of selling legal services is unusual ...
This paper investigates the role of relative comparisons in health status for individual health satisfaction. Previous research stresses the importance of interdependencies in subjective well-being and health arising from positional preferences and status e ects, social health norms, and comparison processes. Using representative longitudinal data from a German population survey, we estimate empirical ...
While previous research on the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue attitudes and their party support emphasize citizens’ issue positions, political competition revolves equally around issue salience, i.e., debates over which issue areas political parties should prioritize. Using multi-wave panel data from Germany and Great Britain, we analyze the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue salience and ...
Despite being among the most important indicators of political participation, relatively little is known about the origins and the development of political interest over the life span. The formative years between childhood and adulthood are generally considered a crucial phase in which future electors form and strengthen political habits. The aim of this research is to better understand this important ...
This paper studies the association between the unemployment experience of fathers and their sons. Based on German survey data that cover the last decades we find significant positive correlations. Using instrumental variables estimation and the Gottschalk (1996) method we investigate to what extent fathers' unemployment is causal for offsprings' employment outcomes. In agreement with most of the small ...
This paper investigates the causal impact of displacement on health outcomes for Colombian children of different age cohorts. It uses the Colombian Demographic and Health Survey 2010, which provides both a number of health outcomes and information about displacement of households. Two different empirical strategies are employed to identify the impact of displacement on child health, namely a linear ...
Abstract: Why do workers remain in unproductive sectors? We examine this question in the context of transitions from agriculture to the modern sector in the mid-20th century Finland. Our empirical strategy builds on the evacuation and resettlement of 11% of the Finnish population after WWII. Displaced farmers were given new farms that were remarkably similar to their old ones.