Limited Self-Control, Obesity and the Loss of Happiness

Obesity has become a major health issue. Research in economics has provided important insights as to how technological progress reduced the relative price of food and contributed to the increase in obesity. However, the increased availability of food might well have overstrained will power and led to suboptimal consumption decisions relative to people’s own standards. We propose the economics of happiness as an approach to study the phenomenon. Based on proxy measures for experienced utility, it is possible to directly address whether certain observed behavior is suboptimal and therefore reduces a person’s well-being. It is found that obesity decreases the well-being of individuals who report limited self-control, but not otherwise.obesity, revealed preference, self-control problem, subjective well-being

The deterrent effect of voting against minarets: identity utility and foreigners' location choice

This paper uses the vote on the Swiss minaret initiative as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of negative attitudes towards immigrants on foreigners' location choices and thus indirectly on their utility. Based on a regression discontinuity design with unknown discontinuity points and administrative data on the population of foreigners, we find that the probability of their moving to a municipality that unexpectedly expressed strong reservations decreases initially by about 60 percent. The effect levels off over a period of about 5 months. Consistent with a reduction in the identity utility for immigrants in general, the reaction is not confined to Muslims, whereby high-skilled foreigners seem to be most sensitive to the newly revealed reservations

Approval of Equal Rights and Gender - Differences in Well-Being

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paper explores whether norms regarding the appropriate pay for women compared to men may explain these findings. In order to capture the spatial variation in such norms, we take community level information on citizens’ approval of an equal rights amendment to the Swiss constitution as a proxy for the norm that “women and men shall have the right to equal pay for work of equal value”. We find that the gender wage gap is smaller where a larger fraction of the citizenry has voted in favor of equal pay. We also find that employed women are less (not more) satisfied with life in liberal communities where the gender wage gap is smaller. These findings are consistent with the idea that norms regarding the appropriate relative pay of women compared to men are shaping gender differences in well-being.equal rights, gender discrimination, gender wage gap, social norms, subjective well-being

Blood Donations and Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment

There is a longstanding concern that material incentives might undermine prosocial motivation, leading to a decrease in blood donations rather than an increase. This paper provides an empirical test of how material incentives aect blood donations in a large-scale eld experiment spanning three months and involving more than 10,000 previous donors. We examine two types of incentive: a lottery ticket and a free cholesterol test. Lottery tickets signicantly increase donations, in particular among less motivated donors. The cholesterol test leads to no discernable impact on usable blood donations. If anything, it creates a small negative selection eect in terms of donations that must be discarded.prosocial behavior, blood donations, material incentives, eld experiment

Bureaucrats in Parliament: Theory and Evidence on its Determinants in Germany

This paper addresses the personal linkages between the public administration and the legislature that emerge because public servants pursue a political mandate. There are concerns that the strong representation of bureaucrats in many Western parliaments compromises the constitutionally proposed political neutrality of the public service and generates a con ict of interest. We present a cost-benet calculus and analyze specic legal provisions for the German Laender to understand the selection of public servants into parliaments. Based on a novel data set, we nd that incompatibility rules decrease and abeyance compensation increases the fraction of public servants in Laender parliaments.Political selection, parliamentary election, public servants, incompatibility

Camera Surveillance as a Measure of Counterterrorism?

Camera surveillance has recently gained prominence in policy proposals on combating terrorism. We evaluate this instrument of counterterrorism as resting on the premise of a deterrence effect. Based on comparative arguments and previous evidence on crime, we expect camera surveillance to have a relatively smaller deterrent effect on terrorism than on other forms of crime. In particular, we emphasize opportunities for substitution (i.e., displacement effects), the interaction with media attention aspired to by terrorists, the limits of real-time interventions, the crowding-out of social surveillance, the risk of misguided profiling, and politico-economic concerns regarding the misuse of the technology.Camera surveillance, closed-circuit television (CCTV), public security, deterrence, terrorism

Blood Donations and Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment

There is a longstanding concern that material incentives might undermine prosocial motivation, leading to a decrease in blood donations rather than an increase. This paper provides an empirical test of how material incentives affect blood donations in a large-scale field experiment spanning three months and involving more than 10,000 previous donors. We examine two types of incentive: a lottery ticket and a free cholesterol test. Lottery tickets significantly increase donations, in particular among less motivated donors. The cholesterol test leads to no discernable impact on usable blood donations. If anything, it creates a small negative selection effect in terms of donations that must be discarded.prosocial behavior, blood donations, material incentives, field experiment

Camera Surveillance as a Measure of Counterterrorism?

Camera surveillance has recently gained prominence in policy proposals on combating terrorism. We evaluate this instrument of counterterrorism as resting on the premise of a deterrence effect. Based on comparative arguments and previous evidence on crime, we expect camera surveillance to have a relatively smaller deterrent effect on terrorism than on other forms of crime. In particular, we emphasize opportunities for substitution (i.e., displacement effects), the interaction with media attention aspired to by terrorists, the limits of real-time interventions, the crowding-out of social surveillance, the risk of misguided profiling, and politico-economic concerns regarding the misuse of the technology.Camera surveillance, closed-circuit television (CCTV), public security, deterrence, terrorism.

Selection of Public Servants into Politics

Countries differ substantially in how they deal with politicians� that come from the public sector. Most constitutions include� incompatibility and� ineligibility rules� due� to� concerns about conflicts� of interest� and the politicization of the public� service.�� We study� how these rules affect� the attractiveness of parliamentary mandates� for public� servants and� thus� the selection into� politics. We compile� a� novel� dataset that� captures the� fraction� of public servants in 71 national� legislatures as well as the respective (in)compatibility regimes. On average, there� are� 7 percentage points� fewer public� servants in parliaments where� a strict regime� is in force.�� Supplementary evidence� shows� that� the� fraction� of public� servants� in parliament is positively correlated with government� consumption� as well as the absence� of corruption.Political selection, public servants, incompatibility, political representation, corruption, government consumption