This paper investigates and compares the relationship between obesity and earnings in the U.S. and Germany. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (U.S.) and the German Socio-Economic Panel, instrumental variables models are estimated that account for the endogeneity of body weight....

This paper examines whether parental marriage confers educational advantages to children relative to cohabitation. We exploit a dramatic marriage boom in Sweden in late 1989 created by a reform of the Widow's Pension System that raised the attractiveness of marriage compared to cohabitation to...

Little research has been done on the body mass index values of 19th century US African-Americans and whites. This paper uses 19th century US prison records to demonstrate that although modern BMIs have increased in the 20th century, 19th century black and white BMIs were distributed...

For policy reforms to increase a society's welfare, reliable information on people's prefer-ences and expectations is crucial. Representative opinion polls, often involving simplified questions about the complex topics under debate, are an important source of information for both policy-makers...

In this article, an updated approach to investigate the effects of demographic fac- tors on economic growth is proposed. The initial hypothesis was that these factors significantly affected production proportions, determining development vectors. The predictable shifts in production dynamics are...

Der demographische Alterungsprozess ist nicht auf die Länder hohen Lebensstandards beschränkt. Der Alterslastquotient (das Verhältnis der Personen von 65 Jahren und älter zu den wirtschaftlich Aktiven zwischen 15 und 64 Jahren) ist z.B. auch in Afrika im Ansteigen begriffen. Jedoch ist der...

In allen OECD-Ländern sind die Geburtenraten in den letzten vierzig Jahren erheblich gesunken. Trotz dieses gemeinsamen Trends kann aber sowohl in der zeitlichen Entwicklung als auch im aktuellen Stand des Geburtenverhaltens eine erhebliche Heterogenität beobachtet werden. Deutschland, Spanien...

Ausgehend von den Bevölkerungsprognosen der Vereinten Nationen sowie der nationalen Statistischen Ämter werden die Entwicklungen wichtiger demographischer Kennziffern für ausgewählte EU-Mitgliedsländer untersucht. Niedrige Geburtenziffern, Abwanderungen und der Anstieg in der...

This paper explores the implications of Unified Growth Theory for the origins of existing differences in income per capita across countries. The theory sheds light on three fundamental layers of comparative development. It identifies the factors that have governed the pace of the transition from...