If human beings care about their relative weight, a form of imitative obesity can emerge (in which people subconsciously keep up with the weight of the Joneses). Using Eurobarometer data on 29 countries, this paper provides cross-sectional evidence that overweight perceptions and dieting are...

We use data from the 1993 and 1998 National Surveys of Small Business Finances to examine the existence of racial discrimination in the small-business credit market. We conduct an econometric analysis of loan outcomes by race and find that black-owned small businesses are about twice as likely...

Recent policies designed to promote profit sharing in Great Britain are surveyed. Evidence on the extent of profit sharing in Britain is presented, and the economic impact of such schemes is assessed. It is found that there is little strong evidence to support the notion that profit sharing...

This paper considers some of the implications of the increase in UK unemployment since the beginning of the Great Recession. The major finding is that the sharp increase in unemployment and decrease in employment is largely concentrated on the young. This has occurred at a time when the size of...

The economic status of young people has declined significantly over the past two decades, despite a variety of programs designed to aid new workers in the transition from the classroom to the job market. This ongoing problem has proved difficult to explain. Drawing on comparative data from...

Surely everyone wants to know the source of happiness, and indeed, economists and social scientists are increasingly interested in the study and effects of subjective well-being. Putting forward a rigorous method and new data for measuring, comparing, and analyzing the relationship between...