This paper analyzes the relationship between spatial mobility and social mobility. It develops a two-skill-type spatial equilibrium model of two regions with location preferences where each region consists of an urban area which is home to workplaces and residences and an exclusively residential...

It has been shown that a person's relative income - compared to a reference group - has a negative impact on self-reported happiness. This suggests that people who aim at increasing their happiness should try to find a better-paid job if their relative income is low. In this paper we study this...

Innovation and technological progress are the key determinants of long-run economic growth and welfare. Therefore, an important question is, how can public policy encourage more innovation? In this chapter, I review some of the empirical findings from various recent studies on innovation and...

Are children better off than their parents? This highly debated question in politics and economics is investigated by analysing the trends in absolute and relative intergenerational labour income mobility for Germany and the US. High quality panel data is used for this purpose; the SOEP for...