We study the causal effects of changes in parental leave provisions on fertility and return-to-work behavior. We exploit a policy change that took place in 1990 in Austria which extended the maximum duration of parental leave from the child's first to the child's second birthday. As parental...

We study the causal effects of changes in parental leave provisions on fertility and return-to-work behavior. We exploit a policy change that took place in 1990 in Austria which extended the maximum duration of parental leave from the child's first to the child's second birthday. As parental...

We study the causal effects of changes in parental leave provisions on fertility and return-to-work behavior. We exploit a policy change that took place in 1990 in Austria which extended the maximum duration of parental leave from the child's first to the child's second birthday. As parental...

Can different social groups develop different demands for social insurance of risks to health and work? We study this issue across language groups in Switzerland. Language defines social groups and Swiss language groups are separated by a clear geographic border. Actual levels of social...

This paper calculates the impact of Active Labour Market Programmes through the use of three new indicators measuring the application performance of the unemployed. These indicators can be measured repeatedly and therefore allow the usage of Panel Regression methods, cancelling out any...

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 shall...

Social norms are usually neglected in economics, because they are to a large extent enforced through non-market interactions and difficult to isolate empirically. In this paper, we offer a direct measure of the social norm to work and we show that this norm has important economic effects. The...

This paper investigates the effectiveness of benefit sanctions in reducing unemployment duration. Data from the Swiss labor market allow making a distinction between the effect of a warning that a person is not complying with eligibility requirements and the effect of the actual enforcement of a...