The world is changing its socio-economic landscape. By doing so, the phenomenon of a growing middle-class appears. Both household surveys and growth projections suggest that only about one-third of the global middle class is based in Asia. However, between 2009 and 2017, the global middle-class...

Communism was a two-edged sword for the trustees of the former regime. Communist party members and their relatives enjoyed status and privileges, while secret police informants were often coerced to work clandestinely and gather compromising materials about friends, colleagues, and neighbors. We...

This paper estimates the returns to membership of the Chinese Communist Party using unique twins data we collected from China. Our OLS estimate shows that being a Party member increases earnings by 10%, but the within-twin-pair estimate becomes zero. One interpretation of these results is that...

The question of whether there is a connection between income and psychological well-being is a long-studied issue across the social, psychological, and behavioral sciences. Much research has found that richer people tend to be happier. However, relatively little attention has been paid to...

The complementarity between wage setting and welfare spending can explain how almost equally rich countries differ in economic and social equality among their citizens. More wage equality increases the welfare generosity via political competition in elections. A more generous welfare state fuels...

Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel, the influence of the body mass index on health, earnings and satisfaction is analysed by gender. Basic results are: health worsens, income declines and satisfaction is poorer with higher body mass index. If control variables are added, estimates are...

This paper examines the effects of past stressful life events on subsequent labor market success using data on twins matched to comprehensive register-based, individual-level information on income and employment status. The long-term labor market outcomes are measured during 20-year follow-up....

The paper uses novel data for Germany linking worker and establishment surveys with administrative social security data for all workers in the surveyed establishments. From these data, four variables are generated that describe a firm's wage structure and the positions of workers within it: (a)...

We first review research about income and earnings volatility and second provide new UK evidence about the latter using high quality administrative record data. The USA stands out as a high volatility country relative to the UK and other high-income countries, but volatility levels have remained...