The U.S. tort system has experienced various reforms during the last three decades. While there is a broad literature on the consequences of these reforms, very little is known about their determinants. In this study, we investigate the politico-economic forces that were driving the reform...

The present paper examines the joint effect of fixed-term employment and work organization on job satisfaction using individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel GSOEP). Specifically, we analyze whether workers who are heterogeneous in terms of the type of working contract...

Camera surveillance has recently gained prominence in policy proposals on combatingterrorism. We evaluate this instrument of counterterrorism as resting on the premise of adeterrence effect. Based on comparative arguments and previous evidence on crime, weexpect camera surveillance to have a...

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public administration and the legislaturethat emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concernsthat the strong representation of bureaucrats in many Western parliaments compromises theconstitutionally proposed...

High rates of unemployment entail substantial costs to the working population interms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individualeconomic security, in particular job security, in workers’ well-being by exploiting sectorspecificinstitutional differences in...

In many countries environmental policies and regulations are implemented to improveenvironmental quality and thus individuals’ well-being. However, how do individuals valuethe environment? In this paper, we review the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) representinga new non-market valuation...

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paperexplores whether norms regarding the appropriate pay for women compared to menmay explain these findings. In order to capture the spatial variation in such norms, wetake community level information on citizens’ approval...

In this paper, we propose a decision framework where people are individuallyasked to either actively consent or dissent to some pro-social behavior. We hypothesize thatconfronting individuals with the choice of engaging in a specific pro-social behaviorcontributes to the formation of...