A variety of public campaigns, including the “Just Say No” campaign of the 1980s and 1990s that encouraged teenagers to “Just Say No to Drugs”, are based on the premise that teenagers are very susceptible to peer influences. Despite this, very little is known about the effect of school...

This paper uses a new large population survey from twelve European countries to measure the association between handedness and depression. It is found that depressive symptoms are significantly higher amongst left-handed men. While 19% of right handed men report experiencing depressive symptoms...

The Trivers Willard hypothesis that higher maternal quality is associated with a higher sex ratio is tested using a large population survey from 12 European countries. Several outcomes are studied, the proportion of children born who are male and the sex of the first three children. The...

The paper develops a model of educational choices with uncertainty to account for the high drop out rate in countries with open admission policies at university entry. As long as university entry reveals useful information, students have incentives to enroll, update their beliefs and choose...

To analyze the effect of health on work, many studies use a simple self-assessed health measure based upon a question such as do you have an impairment or health problem limiting the kind or amount of work you can do?ʺ A possible drawback of such a measure is the possibility that different...

Given the raft of upcoming referendums on the new EU constitution, the question of what determines voting in EU referendums is of considerable importance. Are referendums on EU treaties decided by voters’ attitudes to Europe (the ‘issue voting’ explanation) or by voters’ attitudes to...

This paper analyses the determinants of self-reported health in Ireland, conditioning selfreported health on a set of socio-economic, labour market and social capital variables. Ireland has the highest self-reported health rate in Europe. The results demonstrate statistically significant effects...