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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2019‒07‒08
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Moschion, Julie; Powdthavee, Nattavudh |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an empirical test of the rational addiction model, used in economics to model individuals’ consumption of addictive substances, versus the utility misprediction model, used in psychology to explain the discrepancy between people’s decision and their subsequent experiences. By exploiting a unique data set of disadvantaged Australians, we provide longitudinal evidence that a drop in life satisfaction tends to precede the use of illegal/street drugs. We also find that the abuse of alcohol, the daily use of cannabis and the weekly use of illegal/street drugs in the past 6 months relate to lower current levels of life satisfaction. This provides empirical support for the utility misprediction model. Further, we find that the decrease in life satisfaction following the consumption of illegal/street drugs persists 6 months to a year after use. In contrast, the consumption of cigarettes is unrelated to life satisfaction in the close past or the near future. Our results, though only illustrative, suggest that measures of individual’s subjective wellbeing should be examined together with data on revealed preferences when testing models of rational decision-making |
| Keywords: | Life satisfaction Rational addiction Drugs Homeless Australia Happiness |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I30 |
| Date: | 2018–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86479&r=all |
| By: | Richard Blundell (University College London); Monica Costa Dias (Institute for Fiscal Studies, Centre for Economics and Finance); David Goll (University College London); Costas Meghir (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of training in reducing the gender wage gap using the UK-BHPS which contains detailed records of training. Using policy changes over an 18 year period we identify the impact of training and work experience on wages, earnings and employment. Based on a lifecycle model and using reforms as a source of exogenous variation we evaluate the role of formal training and experience in defining the evolution of wages and employment careers, conditional on education. Training is potentially important in compensating for the effects of children, especially for women who left education after completing high school. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, wage gap, Earnings |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2019-040&r=all |
| By: | Chen, Shuai (Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management) |
| Abstract: | The dissertation studies how individuals respond in their well-being, behavior, attitudes and preferences to changes in their personal life and in society. It consists of three chapters applying economic perspectives and methodologies in the fields of labor economics and political economy. The second chapter investigates the effects of partnership dynamics on subjective well-being. The third chapter explores the symbolic functions of marriage on the stability of formal partnerships. Both chapters are with a special focus on sexual minorities. The fourth chapter, also the last chapter, studies how economic insecurity and cultural backlash have shaped the current populist attitudes and preferences, and have triggered the populist voting behavior in the United States. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiutis:9cb1b11d-12e6-46a8-adca-4b4571f6458c&r=all |
| By: | Charles C. Brown; Daniel S. Hamermesh |
| Abstract: | We summarize recent research on the wage and employment effects of minimum wage laws in the U.S. and infer from non-U.S. studies of hours laws the likely effects of unchanging U.S. hours laws. Minimum wages in the U.S. have increasingly become a province of state governments, with the effective minimum wage now closely related to a state’s wage near the lower end of its wage distribution. Original estimates demonstrate how the 45-year failure to increase the exempt earnings level for salaried workers under U.S. hours laws has raised hours of lower-earning salaried workers and reduced their weekly earnings. The overall conclusion from the literature and the original work is that wages and hours laws in the U.S. have produced impacts in the directions predicted by economic theory, but that these effects have been quite small. |
| JEL: | J23 J38 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25942&r=all |
| By: | Andrew E. Clark (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Anthony Lepinteur (University of Luxembourg [Luxembourg]) |
| Keywords: | Unemployement,Life Satisfaction,Habituation |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-02160305&r=all |