Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paper argues that norms on the appropriate pay for women compared to men explain these findings. We take citizens' approval of an equal rights amendment to the Swiss constitution as a proxy for the norm that "women and men shall...

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paper argues that norms on the appropriate pay for women compared to men explain these findings. We take citizens’ approval of an equal rights amendment to the Swiss constitution as a proxy for the norm that women and men...

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paper explores whether norms regarding the appropriate pay for women compared to men may explain these findings. In order to capture the spatial variation in such norms, we take community level information on citizens' approval...

The role of women in Western societies changed dramatically in the 20th century. We study how political empowerment affected women's emancipation as reflected in their life choices like marital decisions and labor market participation. The staggered introduction of female suffrage in Swiss...

A cross-regional econometric analysis suggests that institutional factors in the form of direct democracy (via initiatives and referenda) and of federal structure (local autonomy) systematically and sizeably raise s elf-reported individual well-being. This positive effect can be attributed to...

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be mitigated by different...

This paper analyzes the impact of fiscal federalism on income inequality and redistribution. Economic theory delivers contradicting arguments such that empirical evidence is needed to shed light on the relationship. To obtain such evidence, we rely on the ideal institutional setting of...