Summary We evaluate the effectiveness of microfinance as a recovery tool after tsunami by testing the impact of an equity injection from foreign donors which recapitalizes a Sri Lankan MFI and allows it to refinance borrowers seriously damaged by the calamity. We find that loans obtained from...

We document with a randomized experiment that being spectators and, to a lesser extent, stakeholders with veil of ignorance on relative payoffs, induces subjects who can choose distribution criteria to prefer rewarding talent (vis-à-vis effort, chance or strict egalitarianism) after...

Our paper provides some novel evidence on the burgeoning literature on life satisfaction and relative comparisons by showing that in the last 30 years comparisons with the wellbeing of top income countries have generated progressively more negative feelings on a large sample of individuals in...

The paper focuses on happiness inequality, an issue rather neglected in the literature. We analyze the increase in happiness inequality observed in Germany between 1991 and 2007 by means of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) database. We make use of a recent methodology that allows...

Our paper provides some novel evidence on the burgeoning literature on life satisfaction and relative comparisons by showing that in the last 30 years comparisons with the wellbeing of top income countries have generated progressively more negative feelings on a large sample of individuals in...

The present paper draws on data collected through a Traveler's Dilemma experiment where the possibility of consuming relational goods is introduced by allowing (or forcing) agents to meet after the experiment. It enriches the literature on social distance by comparing the effect of its reduction...

The paper draws on data collected in an investment game plus a questionnaire to investigate whether happiness is affected by the circumstances and/or outcomes of the game and to evaluate what motivations or preference structures (self-interested preferences, inequity aversion, altruism, warm...

We investigate what is behind the profit/not for profit wage differential by comparing judgments on job caracteristics of workers who voluntarily or involuntarily moved from the first to the second sector. We define voluntary movers those who applied for a job in a not for profit organization...

The recent availability of cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data on life satisfaction in a large number of countries gives us the opportunity to verify empirically (and not just to assume)what matters for individuals and what economists and policymakers should take into account when...