Many observers believe that times are growing harder for young people in Western society. This paper looks at the evidence and finds that conventional wisdom appears to be wrong. Using the U.S. General Social Surveys and the Eurobarometer Surveys, the paper studies the reports happiness and...

The paper examines the labour markets of Eastern Europe. It studies the problem of high levels of joblessness among young people. The paper begins by showing that, in both West and East, adult and youth unemployment rate are closely correlated. It provides scatter-plot evidence using...

This paper studies utility interdependence in the laboratory. We design an experiment where subjects can reduce ("burn") other subjects' money. Those who burn the money of others have to give up some of their own cash. Despite this cost, and contrary to the assumptions of economics textbooks,...

The paper studies commuting in Great Britain in the 1990s. The average one-way commute to work is now 38 minutes in London, 33 minutes in the south-east, and 21 minutes in the rest of the country. There are three other findings. First, commuting times are especially long among the highly...

This paper describes a theory of rational emulation and deviance. It assumes that individuals care about relative position (or 'status'), and constructs a model of decision-making in social and economic settings.