Is affluence a good thing? The book The Challenge of Affluence by Avner Offer (2006) argues that economic prosperity weakens self-control and undermines human well-being. Consistent with a pessimistic view, we show that psychological distress has been rising through time in modern Great Britain....

In universities all over the world, hiring and promotion committees regularly hear the argument: "this is important work because it is about to appear in prestigious journal X". Moreover, those who allocate levels of research funding, such as in the multi-billion pound Research Assessment...

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...

What determines human beings' political preferences? Using nationally representative longitudinal data, we show that having daughters makes people more likely to vote for left-wing political parties. Having sons leads people to favor right-wing parties. The paper checks that our result is not an...

This paper provides evidence of the importance of what might be termed 'expert leaders'. Although it is widely assumed that leaders affect the performance of their organizations, the complexity of this social-science research area has meant that comparatively little empirical progress has been...

The paper sets out a theory of hedonic adaptation and resilience. By distinguishing between stocks and flows of psychological resources, it suggests a new way to think about the dynamics of human well-being or 'happiness'. Central to the analysis is a concept we refer to as hedonic capital. We...

IZA DP No. 3139 What Makes a Young Entrepreneur? David G. Blanchflower Andrew J. Oswald DISCUSSION P APER SERIES Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor November 2007 What Makes a Young Entrepreneur? David G. Blanchflower Dartmouth College, NBER,...