I propose two new tests of Falk and Knell's (2004)prediction that individuals'reference income increases with ability. To overcome the difficulty that the reference income is not observed in existing large data sets, I extend Falk and Knell's model to establish a link between immigrants'...

Assar Lindbeck has pointed to the problem that generous welfare state institutions may in the long-run undermine those social norms which limit the costs and incentives effects of the welfare state and thus guarantee its viability. This study is the first to assess the empirical validity of...

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the importance of social class, migration background and command of national languages for the PISA school performance of teenagers living in European countries (France, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, and Sweden) and traditional countries of...

Violence at schools is a well-known problem in many societies. This paper assesses the degree of school violence in 11 European countries and analyzes the determinants of being a victim and its effect on student performance. The study draws on the international TIMSS 2003 and the British...

This paper asks whether the gap in subjective happiness between spouses matters per se, i.e. whether it predicts divorce. We use three panel databases to explore this question. Controlling for the level of life satisfaction of spouses, we find that a higher satisfaction gap, even in the first...

On Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia, editors who contribute to the same articles and exchange comments on articles' talk pages work in collaborative manner engaging in communication about their work. Thus they can be considered as peers who are likely to influence each other. In this...

We experimentally test different rule-based contribution mechanisms in a repeated 4-player public goods game with endowment heterogeneity and compare them to a VCM, distinguishing between a random- and an effort-based allocation of endowments. We find that endowment heterogeneities limit the...

In this experiment, we endogenize the choice of which contribution scheme is implemented in a public goods game. We investigate three rule-based contribution schemes. In a first step, players agree on a common group provision level using the principle of the smallest common denominator....

We investigate how burden sharing rules may impact the voluntary provision of a public good which generates heterogeneous benefits to agents. We compare different rule-based contribution schemes that are based on the principle of the smallest common denominator: all agents can suggest a minimum...

In this paper, we extend the Fehr and Schmidt model of inequality aversion to a situation where the players differ with respect to their benefits and costs from contributions to a non-linear public good. A necessary condition for contributing to the public good is that the players' benefit...