After reviewing the literature on item non-response we focus on three issues: First, is there significant heterogeneity in item non-response across financial questions and in the association of covariates with item non-response across outcomes? Second, can the informational value of surveys be...

In this paper a new method to estimate the equivalence scale elasticity using individual panel data on income satisfaction will be developed. In contrast to other subjective approaches, the present one benefits from the fact that no direct cardinal individual welfare function has to be...

We design a new field experiment to test pro-social behaviour: will a household return a letter that has been incorrectly addressed? On average, we find that half of all letters were returned. Return rates do not vary significantly according to the gender, race or ethnicity of the fictitious...

In this paper we analyze the processes of labour market exclusion and (re-) inclusion, using a Danish register-based data set covering the period 1981-1990. The analysis is performed by estimation of reduced form transition models, the parameters of which are interpreted within the framework of...

What makes workers happy? Here we argue that pure 'rank' matters. It is currently believed that wellbeing is determined partly by an individual's absolute wage (say, 30,000 dollars a year) and partly by the individual's relative wage (say, 30,000 dollars compared to an average in the company or...

This paper studies whether prosocial values are transmitted from parents to their children. We do so through an economic experiment, in which a group of Hispanic and African American families play a standard public goods game. The experimental data presents us with a surprising result. We find...

According to social-psychological research, feelings of uncertainty in decision-making evoke two opposite responses: (i) reduction of uncertainty by information search, leading to less stereotyping of people, and hence less discrimination; (ii) social identification with an ingroup, inducing...

This article sheds light on the important differences in self-declared happiness across countries of equivalent affluence. It hinges on the different happiness statements of natives and immigrants in a set of European countries to disentangle the influence of objective circumstances versus...