Research evidence on the impact of relative income position on individual attitudes and behaviour is sorely lacking. Therefore, this paper assesses such positional impact on social capital by applying 14 different measurements to International Social Survey Programme data from 25 countries. We...

Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Taking account of the potential simultaneity between terror and decentralization, our results show that expenditure...

This paper uses a sample of 71 countries in a cross-country context to empirically analyze the relationship between income distribution and software piracy rates. It measures income inequality by the Gini coefficient and alternatively by quintile shares. This analysis remedies previous...

This paper analyzes the impact of gender discrimination on individual life satisfaction using a cross-section of 66 countries. We employ measures of discrimination of women in the economy, in politics, and in society more generally. According to our results, discrimination in politics is...

Low fertility rates combined with increases in early retirement pose a serious challenge to the sustainability of social security systems in most industrialized countries. Therefore, it is important for policy makers to understand the determinants of early retirement and especially the role that...

This paper explores a wide range of determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a database of 73 countries, based in turn on about 100 000 observations. The determinants can be categorized in four groups: political, economic, institutional factors and human development and culture. The...

This paper analyzes the impact of direct legislation at the cantonal level on the quality of public education in Switzerland, using a cross-section of individual data on reading performance similar to that used in the OECD-PISA study. For this purpose, a structural and a reduced form of an...

Research evidence on the impact of relative income position on individuals’ attitudes and behaviour is sorely lacking. Therefore, using the International Social Survey Programme 1998 data from 26 countries this paper investigates the impact of relative income on 14 measurements of social...

Identification of a deleterious impact of institutions of direct legislation on student performance by studies for both the U.S. and Switzerland has raised the question of the exact transmission channels for this impact. Studies for the U.S. that find an increase in the ratio of administrative...

This paper evaluates the relationship between job satisfaction and measures of health of workers over 50 using the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) and cross-sectional data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Methodologically, it addresses two important design problems...