Extant evidence that the self-employed overestimate their returns by more than employees do is consistent with two mutually inclusive possibilities. Self-employment may generate optimism or optimists may be drawn to self-employment. This paper finds that employees who will be self-employed in...

This paper undertakes an analysis of the motivating factors cited by the self-employed in the UK as reasons for choosing self-employment. Very limited previous research has addressed the question of why individuals report that they have chosen self-employment. Two questions are addressed using...

This paper provides a quantitative investigation of the strength of the potential relationship between entrepreneurial activity and religious affiliation. The relationship between religion and economic development has attracted recent attention. A positive association may indicate that religion...

A range of alternative empirical definitions of informal activity have been employed in the literature. Choice of definition is often dictated by data availability. Different definitions may imply very different conceptual understandings of informality. This paper investigates the degree of...

Contemporary dynamic theories of self-employment choice focus on occupational switching costs, and the risk associated with entrepreneurial income streams. However little or no previous research has addressed the question of what factors determine the length of time that it takes aspiring...

Many OECD countries have implemented policies to induce couples to share parental leave. This paper investigates how responsive intra-household leave-sharing is to changes in economic incentives. To investigate this fundamental question, we are forced to look at one of the Nordic countries which...

As evidence is accumulating that subjective expectations influence behavior and that these expectations are sometimes biased, it becomes policy-relevant to know how to influence individuals' expectations. Information in the media is likely to affect how people picture the future. This paper...

For various reasons the relationship between age and productivity is a matter of policy concern. I present new empirical research showing how productivity is affected by age. I study age effects at the individual level by analyzing data on running and publishing in economic journals. Furthermore...

This paper provides evidence about the quality of retrospective childhood health histories given to respondents in the HRS and the PSID. Even though information on early life health events is critical, there is legitimate skepticism about the ability of older respondents to remember specific...

We analyze the determinants of global life satisfaction in two countries (The Netherlands and the U.S.), by using both self-reports and responses to a battery of vignette questions. We find global life satisfaction of happiness is well-described by four domains: job or daily activities, social...