In a 1-year randomized controlled trial involving thousands of university students, we provide real-time private feedback on relative performance in a semester-long online assignment. Within this setup, our experimental design cleanly identifies the behavioral response to rank incentives (i.e.,...

This paper examines the effects of the Working Families´ Tax Credit (WFTC) on couples inBritain. We develop a simple model of household decisions which explicitly accounts for therole played by the tax and benefit system. Its main implications are then tested using paneldata from the British...

An emerging question in demographic economics is whether there is a link between family size and the geographic distance between adult children and elderly parents. Given current population trends, understanding how different configurations of family size and sibship influence patterns of...

This paper examines the effects of the Working Families' Tax Credit (WFTC) on couples in Britain. We develop a simple model of household decisions which explicitly accounts for the role played by the tax and benefit system. Its main implications are then tested using panel data from the British...

The level of trust inherent in a society is important for a wide range of microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. This paper investigates how individuals' attitudes toward social and institutional trust are shaped by the political regime in which they live. The German reunification is a unique...

This paper formulates a model to examine the effects of changes in tax-benefit policy on the behavior of divorced parents and the well-being of children in single-parent households. Noncustodial parents choose the level of a child support payment to transfer to custodians. These, in turn, decide...

Some sociologists argue that non-intact family structures during childhood have a negative effect on adult children's civic engagement, since they undermine, and in some cases prevent, the processes and activities through which parents shape their children's political attitudes and orientations....

Inequality of opportunity, particularly when overlaid with socioeconomic, ethnic, or cultural differences, may limit the scope of cooperation between individuals. A central question, then, is how to overcome such obstacles to cooperation. We study this question in the context of Germany, by...

This paper conducts a cross-national econometric analysis of intra-family location and caregiving patterns. First, we assess, from an international perspective, the relationship between family structure and the geographic proximity between adult children and their parents. We then examine...

Is unemployment the overwhelming determinant of domestic violence that many commentators expect it to be? The contribution of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, how changes in unemployment affect the incidence of domestic abuse. The key theoretical prediction is that male...