This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more left-wing. Having sons, by contrast, makes them more right-wing. Parents, politicians and voters are probably not aware of this phenomenon - nor are social scientists. The paper discusses its economic and evolutionary roots. It also...

This paper estimates the exogenous effect of schooling on reduced incidence of hypertension. Using the changes in the minimum school-leaving age law in the United Kingdom from age 14 to 15 in 1947, and from age 15 to 16 in 1973, as sources of exogenous variation in schooling, the regression...

This paper shows that cross country differences in the generosity and the quality of the welfare state are associated with differences in the trustworthiness of their citizens. We show that generous, transparent and efficient welfare states in Scandinavian countries are based on the civicness of...

This paper estimates the exogenous effect of schooling on reduced incidence of hypertension. Using the changes in the minimum school-leaving age law in the United Kingdom from age 14 to 15 in 1947, and from age 15 to 16 in 1973, as sources of exogenous variation in schooling, the regression...

This paper shows that cross country differences in the generosity and the quality of the welfare state are associated with differences in the trustworthiness of their citizens. We show that generous, transparent and efficient welfare states in Scandinavian countries are based on the civicness of...

The causes of people's political attitudes are largely unknown. We study this issue by exploiting longitudinal data on lottery winners. Comparing people before and after a lottery windfall, we show that winners tend to switch towards support for a right-wing political party and to become less...

It is common knowledge that John Maynard Keynes advocated bold government action to deal with recessions and unemployment. What is not commonly known is that modern "Keynesian policies" bear little, if any, resemblance to the policy measures Keynes himself believed would guarantee true full...

This paper carries out a critical reappraisal of the two contending theories purporting to explain long-run government spending: Wagner’s Law and different variants of the ratchet effect. We analyze data spanning from the early 19th century until the present day in Sweden and the United...

This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more left-wing. Having sons, by contrast, makes them more right-wing. Parents, politicians and voters are probably not aware of this phenomenon -- nor are social scientists. The paper discusses its economic and evolutionary roots. It also...

Immediately after the 1994 election giving the Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, Congressman Bill Archer (R., Tex.), who was in line to become the new chairman of the House tax-writing committee, announced his intention to abandon the income...