At the time of disability onset, the effect of disability insurance on earnings is limited by the finding that work-prevented respondents, who account for the majority of benefit claims, have negligible earnings regardless of application status.

« L’ODA bashing » est devenue une activité en vogue. Au-delà des procès périodiques sur la faible efficacité de l’aide, voire ses effets pervers, toute une littérature s’est développée ces dernières années pour annoncer la « fin de l’aide », en prétextant parfois que son...

ODA bashing has become a popular pastime. Apart from the periodic allegations that aid has little effect or that its effects are perverse, a wealth of material has been produced in recent years announcing the end of aid and sometimes claiming that its role in the development of poor countries...

This note examines a common explanation why participants of panel surveys may report declining life satisfaction over time. In line with the argument of developing trust relationships between interviewers and interviewees, the analysis reveals positive effects in reported life satisfaction when...

We document key facts about marriage and divorce, comparing trends through the past 150 years and outcomes across demographic groups and countries. While divorce rates have risen over the past 150 years, they have been falling for the past quarter century. Marriage rates have also been falling,...

The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society’s economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive...

The paper examines the appropriate domain of the Welfare State by exploring the areas in which free enterprise fails to provide adequate welfare state services. The paper outlines a simple coherent strategy for formulating government welfare state policy by identifying the relevant market...

This paper presents an analysis of the Five Economists' plan for a "wage-tax trade-off", combining an EITC program with a freeze on award wage increases, as a policy package for reducing unemployment. The study identifies the changes in effective tax rates implied by the EITC program and shows...

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of seven aspects of rising inequality that are usually discussed separately: changes in labor’s share of income; inequality at the bottom of the income distribution, including labor mobility; skill-biased technical change; inequality among high incomes;...