In order to explain the substantial recent increases in obesity rates in the United States, we consider the effect of falling food prices in the context of a model involving endogenous body weight norms and an explicit, empirically grounded description of human metabolism. Unlike previous...

We combine information on social networks with medical records and survey data in order to examine how friends affect one's decision to get vaccinated against the flu. The random assignment of undergraduates to residential halls at a large private university allows us to estimate how peer...

Using a research design that traces siblings' preferences for postmaterialistic values in Germany over two decades, this paper provides new evidence on the origins of value preferences. Focusing on Inglehart's thesis of value change, we test the combined socialization and scarcity hypothesis...

This paper investigates the relationship between a CEO’s social network, firm identity, and firm performance. There are two competing theories that predict contradictory outcomes. Following social network theory, one would expect a positive relation between social networks and firm...

On many measures, the indigenous movement in Ecuador has been the most successful in Latin America. This is particularly the case in political terms where they were key players until leaving the Gutiérrez cabinet. Their influence on the direction of economic policy has been minimal, however,...

Specialization and trade rest on institutions that protect property rights and enforce agreements. Frequently, in economic analysis institutions are just assumed to exist, or it is implicitly supposed that the political game can establish them. Once this assumption is done, the invisible hand...

The study aims at illuminating the following questions: (1) what characterizes enterprises and workers using the temporary work booklet, (2) in what ways do actors on the labour market use the booklet, (3) what motivations drive the economic actors when they decide about the ways of using the...

In line with the widely applied principle of just deserts, we assume that the severity of the penalty on a contract offender increases in the harm on the other. When this principle holds, the influence of the efficiency of the agreement on the incentives to abide by it crucially depends on...

Obesity is significantly more prevalent among non-Hispanic African-American (henceforth "black") women than among non]Hispanic white American (henceforth gwhiteh) women. These differences have persisted without much alteration since the early 1970s, despite substantial increases in the rates of...

The paper presents survey results regarding opinions and attitudes of the 18-60 y. o. Hungarian population concerning tax evasion and corruption, while it also examines the actual and intended behavior of the economically most active segment of the population concerning these matters, and...