The internet has become an important data source for the Social Sciences because these data are available without lags, can be regarded as involuntary surveys and hence have no observer effect, can be geo-labeled, are available for countries across the globe and can be viewed in continuous time...

This paper examines the relationship between pay inequality, economic growth, and performance in Korea. Pay inequality is estimated by using Theil's index to identify the factors determining the level of pay inequality, and establish its relationship with economic growth and performance. For the...

There is no significant relationship between the improvement in happiness and the long term rate of growth of GDP per capita. This is true for three groups of countries analyzed separately − 17 developed, 9 developing, and 11 transition − and also for the 37 countries taken together. Time...

Based on point-of-time comparisons of happiness in richer and poorer countries, it is commonly asserted that economic growth will have a significant positive impact on happiness in poorer countries, if not richer. The time trends of subjective well-being (SWB) in 13 developing countries,...

Various development objectives are worthy, but to my mind, one objective dominates all others: reducing the scourge of absolute economic misery in the world. In this paper, I focus on an important but relatively underemphasized approach to poverty reduction: helping the poor earn more in the...

Trotz des größten Wirtschaftseinbruchs in der deutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte hat die internationale Krise die Bürger kaum erreicht. Das wird sich mittelfristig bedrohlich ändern, wenn es nicht gelingt, rechtzeitig eine aufziehende Kreditklemme und eine bedrohlich wachsende Staatsverschuldung...

We measure the effects of trade liberalization over the period of 1993-2002 on regional poverty levels in 259 Indonesian regions, and investigate the labour market mechanisms behind these effects. The identification strategy relies on combining information on initial regional labour and product...

What are the factors that explain reversals in the implementation of structural reforms? Our main hypothesis is that reversals in different reforms are driven by different factors. This paper uses new reform indicators and presents novel evidence showing that (a) FDI inflows reduce the...

We use panel data on Mexican manufacturing plants to study the connection between plants’ responses to changes in the economic environment and their contributions to aggregate productivity growth in the period following the implementation of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In all...