The effects of active labour market policies (ALMP) on individual employment chances and earnings are evaluated by nonparametric instrumental variables based on Swiss administrative data with detailed regional information. Using an exogenous variation in the participation probabilities across...

A growing economic literature stresses the importance of relative comparisons, e.g., for savings and consumption or happiness. In this literature it is usually assumed that reference standards against which people compare themselves are exogenously given. In contrast findings from social...

In this paper we analyse with the PISA data on literacy achievement of fifteen-year-old pupils in six member countries of the OECD, whether the fact of having many siblings affects the individual educational outcome. The hypothesis that we test is whether parents? resources matter for...

In order to learn more about the wage elasticity of the teacher supply in Switzerland, this paper estimates wages for teachers and non-teachers. The data used are ten surveys of graduates of all Swiss universities for the period of 1981-1999. The data allows us to estimate the wage elasticity...

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...

We investigate the allocation of unemployed individuals to different subprograms within Swiss active labour market policy by the caseworkers at local employment offices in Switzerland in 1998. We are particularly interested in whether the caseworkers allocate the unemployed to services in ways...

This study uses panel data describing about 6,500 employees in a large international company to study the incentive effects of performance related pay. The company uses two performance related remuneration mechanisms. One is an individual "surprise" bonus payment. The other is a more structured...

This study investigates equity in access to health care in Switzerland over time, using nationwide representative survey data from 1982, 1992, 1997 and 2002. Both simple quintile distributions and concentration indices are used to assess horizontal equity, i.e. the extent to which adults in...

This paper presents new evidence on income-related health inequality and its development over time in Switzerland. We employ the methods lined out in van Doorslaer and Jones (2003) and van Doorslaer and Koolman (2004) measuring health using an interval regression approach to compute...

Switzerland, traditionally a ?zero unemployment? economy, has seen an unprecedented rise in joblessness in the 1990s although unemployment fell again to a rather low level after 1997. This paper tests whether Switzerland experienced a negative relative net demand shock against the low skilled...