Researchers and policy makers face significant challenges in selecting a method to conduct remote surveys, especially when collecting sensitive information or during turbulent life stages of hard-to-reach groups. In the context of the COVID-19 lockdown, we randomly selected about 600 adults in...

Policy makers put great emphasis on the role of information about carbon emissions in achieving sustainable decisions by consumers. We conduct two studies to understand the optimal targeting of such information and its effects. First, we conduct an incentivized and representative survey among US...

This paper explores the effects of fiscal competition on local land use. A theoretical analysis considers the tradeoff faced by a local government deciding about the amount of land made available for commercial or residential uses, when its expansion has adverse effects on the quality of life....

This paper examines the role of the sociocultural background of students for choosing STEM fields in university. We combine rich survey data on university graduates in Switzerland with municipality level information from the census as well as nationwide elections and referenda to characterize a...

We use a random survey of Swedish human resource managers to study the reasons for wage rigidity. Our findings are as follows. First, during the exceptional recession of the 1990s only 1.1 percent of workers received a wage cut. Second, much wage rigidity can be traced to behavioral mechanisms...

Financial inclusion is crucial for the inclusive and sustainable economic growth of developing countries. Access to financial services to all citizens, particularly to low income and poor people is a key to promote inclusive growth. While rural financial inclusion assumes importance from policy...

This paper does three things. First, based on a limited number of theoretically established dimensions, it proposes a new de facto indicator for the rule of law. It is the first such indicator to take the quality of legal norms explicitly into account. Second, using this indicator we shed new...

We report the results from a representative survey of human resource managers in 885 Swedish firms. We estimate that during the severe recession of the 1990s, only 1.1 percent of workers took a cut in regular nominal pay. We trace the lack of wage moderation to a combination of exogenous...

We collect, digitize, and supplement the Swiss rich list for the years 1989-2020 published in the "BILANZ" business magazine to gain new insights on the structure and dynamics of top wealth in Switzerland. Using this data allows us study the super-rich in Switzerland in ways that were not...

We measure individual-level loss aversion using three incentivized, representative surveys of the U.S. population (combined N = 3,000). We find that around 50% of the U.S. population is loss tolerant, with many participants accepting negative-expected-value gambles. This is counter to earlier...