Intergenerational Transmission of Risk Attitudes: A Revealed Preference Approach

This study investigates whether the willingness to take income risks revealed by occupational choice is transmitted from parents to their children. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we find that fathers' riskiness of job is a significant determinant of children's occupational risk, in particular sons' (excluding parent-child pairs with identical occupations). This is the first piece of evidence for intergenerational transmission of risk attitudes relying on real world behavior. It shows that not only individuals' own assessments of their risk attitudes correlate (found by previous studies) but also risk preferences shown in exactly the same situation.Risk preferences, intergenerational transmission, occupational choice

Scientific Misbehavior in Economics: Unacceptable research practice linked to perceived pressure to publish.

Upholding research integrity depends on our ability to understand the extent of misconduct. Sarah Necker describes her landmark study on economists’ research norms and practices. Fabrication, falsification and plagiarism are widely considered to be unjustifiable, but misbehaviour is still prevalent. For example, 1-3% of economists surveyed admit that they have accepted or offered gifts, money, or sex in exchange for co-authorship, data, or promotion. Economists’ perceived pressure to publish is found to be positively related to their admission of being involved in several rejected research practices

The evolution of German's values since reunification

Exploiting the natural experiment of German reunification, we study whether having experienced socialism has an enduring effect on people's basic values. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we show that individuals that lived in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) assign different importance to six out of nine life goals. Our evidence suggests two reactions, adaption to policies/conditions in the GDR as well as switching to the opposite values. The strength of the reactions varies with East Germans' appreciation of reunification. Intergenerational transmission seems to contribute to the preservation of socialist in influence across generations; it does not differ between East and West Germany. We show that self-reported values are behaviorally relevant. Differences in values provide a possible explanation for persistent differences in behavior

Happiness of economists

This study investigates the determinants of economists' life satisfaction. The analysis is based on a survey of professional, mostly academic economists from European countries and beyond. We find that certain features of economists' professional situation influence their well-being. Happiness is increased by having more research time while the lack of a tenured position decreases satisfaction in particular if the contract expires in the near future or cannot be extended. Surprisingly, publication success has no effect on satisfaction. While the perceived level of external pressure also has no impact, the perceived change of pressure in recent years has. Economists may have accepted a high level of pressure when entering academia but do not seem to be willing to cope with the increase observed in recent years

Happiness of Economists

We study the importance of economists' professional situation toward their life satisfaction based on a unique survey of mostly academic economists. On average, economists report to be highly happy with life. Satisfaction is positively related to spending more time on doing research. The lack of a tenured position decreases satisfaction. However, the extent to which the uncertainty created by the tenure system affects satisfaction varies with the contract terms. The effect is stronger if the contract expires in the near future or cannot be extended. Publication success has no effect if it is controlled for academic rank and the contract duration. The finding suggests that publications are rather a means to an end, e.g., to acquire a tenured position. While the perceived level of external pressure also has no impact, the perceived change of pressure in recent years is positively related to economists' life satisfaction. An explanation is that economists have accepted a high level of pressure when entering academia but are not willing to cope with the recent increase

Toward an understanding of collaborative tax evasion: A natural field experiment with businesses

Sales from businesses to consumers provide fertile ground for collaborative tax evasion. However, little is known about the phenomenon. We conduct a natural field experiment with 2,900 businesses in which we take the role of consumers and vary if we request an invoice for the delivery of a service. We find that 56% of businesses approach consumers with the intention to evade. The fraction is zero in the regulated market and 72% in the unregulated market. It increases when consumers signal their willingness to collude. Consumers can save 25% of the legal price on average if they agree to evade

Monetary incentives and the contagion of unethical behavior

We analyze both theoretically and empirically how monetary incentives and information about others’ behavior affect dishonesty. We run a laboratory experiment with 560 participants, each of whom observes a number from one to six with there being a payoff associated with each number. They can either truthfully report the number they see or lie about it in order to increase their payoff. We vary both the size of the payoff (Low, High, and Very High) and the amount of information about others’ dishonesty (With and Without Information). We first find that dishonesty falls in the Very High treatment. Second, while social information has on average at most a weak positive effect, there is a strong effect if the accuracy of individuals’ beliefs is accounted for. Third, social information and payoffs do not interact with each other

Zur Reform der Transferentzugsraten und Verbesserung der Erwerbsanreize

Im Koalitionsvertrag wurde vereinbart, die Erwerbstätigenfreibeträge im Bürgergeld und weiteren Sozialleistungen zu reformieren, um höhere Erwerbsanreize für sozialversicherungspflichtige Beschäftigung zu schaffen. Zur Entwicklung von Reformvorschlägen hat das BMAS ein Forschungsvorhaben vergeben. Der Ende November 2023 vorgelegte Endbericht analysiert im ersten Teil die Erwerbsanreize im bestehenden bzw. künftigen Sozialsystem inkl. geplanter Kindergrundsicherung. Der zweite Teil stellt konkrete Reformvorschläge vor und beschreibt ihre Auswirkungen. Zur Entwicklung und Bewertung der Reformvorschläge greifen die Forscher*innen auf zwei repräsentative Bevölkerungsbefragungen, optimalsteuertheoretische Analysen, die Mikrosimulationsmodelle von ifo und ZEW sowie die Einschätzungen einer Expert*innengruppe zurück

A global perspective on the trophic geography of sharks

Sharks are a diverse group of mobile predators that forage across varied spatial scales and have the potential to influence food web dynamics. The ecological consequences of recent declines in shark biomass may extend across broader geographic ranges if shark taxa display common behavioural traits. By tracking the original site of photosynthetic fixation of carbon atoms that were ultimately assimilated into muscle tissues of 5,394 sharks from 114 species, we identify globally consistent biogeographic traits in trophic interactions between sharks found in different habitats. We show that populations of shelf-dwelling sharks derive a substantial proportion of their carbon from regional pelagic sources, but contain individuals that forage within additional isotopically diverse local food webs, such as those supported by terrestrial plant sources, benthic production and macrophytes. In contrast, oceanic sharks seem to use carbon derived from between 30° and 50° of latitude. Global-scale compilations of stable isotope data combined with biogeochemical modelling generate hypotheses regarding animal behaviours that can be tested with other methodological approaches.This research was conducted as part of C.S.B.’s Ph.D dissertation, which was funded by the University of Southampton and NERC (NE/L50161X/1), and through a NERC Grant-in-Kind from the Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry Facility (LSMSF; EK267-03/16). We thank A. Bates, D. Sims, F. Neat, R. McGill and J. Newton for their analytical contributions and comments on the manuscripts.Peer reviewe