The economic costs of chronic health conditions and severe illnesses like diabetes, coronary heart disease or cancer are immense. Several clinical trials give information about the importance of individual behaviour for the prevalence of these illnesses. Changes in health relevant behaviour may...

We analyze the effect of household indebtedness on different health outcomes using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1999-2009. To establish a causal effect, we rely on (a) fixed-effects methods, (b) a subsample of constantly employed individuals, and (c) lagged debt variables to...

The economic costs of chronic health conditions and severe illnesses like diabetes, coronary heart disease or cancer are immense. Several clinical trials give information about the importance of individual behaviour for the prevalence of these illnesses. Changes in health relevant behaviour may...

We analyze the effect of household indebtedness on different health outcomes using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1999-2009. To establish a causal effect, we rely on (a) fixed-effects methods, (b) a subsample of constantly employed individuals, and (c) lagged debt variables to...

Across academic sub-fields such as labor, education, and behavioral economics, the measurement and interpretation of non-cognitive skills varies widely. As a result, it is difficult to compare results on the importance of non-cognitive skills across literatures. Drawing from these literatures,...

This study provides insights on the role of early childhood family environment within the process of preference formation. We start by presenting evidence showing that breastfeeding duration is a valid measure of the quality of early childhood environment. In the main analysis, we then...

Do other peoples' incomes reduce the happiness which people in advanced countries experience from any given income? And does this help to explain why in the U.S., Germany and some other advanced countries, happiness has been constant for many decades? The answer to both questions is "Yes". We...

Previous work has shown that preferences are not always stable across time, but surprisingly little is known about the reasons for this instability. I examine whether variation in people's emotions over time predicts changes in preferences. Using a large panel data set, I find that within-person...

Using large-scale data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper finds that financial professionals have a lower prosociality and riskier behavior than a control group. I interpret these findings using the person-organization fit theory, and thus, the compatibility between the...

While there is an established positive relationship between self-control and education, the direction of causality remains a matter of debate. We make a contribution to resolving this issue by exploiting a series of Australian and German educational reforms that increased minimum education...