Government decentralization as a disincentive for transnational terror? An empirical analysis

Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Our results show that expenditure decentralization reduces the number of transnational terror events in a country, while political decentralization has no impact. These results are robust to the choice of control variables and method of estimation.Terrorism; Decentralization; Federalism; Governance quality; Government effectiveness

Do Positional Concerns Destroy Social Capital: Evidence from 26 Countries

Research on the effects of positional concerns on individuals’ attitudes and behavior is sorely lacking. To address this deficiency, we use the International Social Survey Programme 1998 data on 25’000 individuals from 26 countries to investigate the impact of relative income position on three facets of social capital, covering horizontal and vertical trust as well as norm compliance. Testing relative deprivation theory, we identify a deleterious positional income effect for persons below the reference income, particularly for their social trust and confidence in secular institutions. Also often a social capital-lowering effect of relative income advantage occurs, while a rise in absolute income almost always contributes positively. These results indicate that a rise in income inequality in society too large is rather detrimental to the formation of social capital.Relative income, positional concerns, social capital, social norms, deprivation theory

The Effect of Pension Generosity on Early Retirement: A Microdata Analysis for Europe from 1967 to 2004

Using pseudo-panel microdata we show that pension generosity affects early retirement decisions. The changes in the average replacement rate and decreases in wealth accrual between 1967 and 2004 have caused an increase in early retirement probabilities from 16% to 63%.Early Retirement; Pension Systems; Pension Neutrality; Pension Generosity; SHARE

Does Job Satisfaction Improve the Health of Workers?: New Evidence Using Panel Data and Objective Measures of Health

This paper evaluates the relationship between job satisfaction and measures of health of workers using the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Methodologically, it addresses two important design problems encountered frequently in the literature: (a) cross-sectional causality problems and (b) absence of objective measures of physical health that complement self-reported measures of health status. Not only does using the panel structure with individual fixed effects mitigate the bias from omitting unobservable personal psycho-social characteristics, but employing more objective health measures such as health-system contacts and disability addresses such measurement problems relating to self-report assessments of health status. We find a positive link between job satisfaction (and changes over time therein) and subjective health measures (and changes therein); that is, employees with higher or improved job satisfaction levels feel healthier and are more satisfied with their health. This observation also holds true for more objective measures of health. Particularly, improvements in job satisfaction over time appear to prevent workers from (further) health deterioration.Job satisfaction, well-being, health, panel data analysis

Cross-Country Determinants of Life Satisfaction:Exploring Different Determinants across Groups inSociety

This paper explores a wide range of cross-country determinants of life satisfaction exploiting adatabase of 90,000 observations in 70 countries. We distinguish four groups of aggregate variablesas potential determinants of satisfaction: political, economic, institutional, and human developmentand culture. We use ordered probit to investigate the importance of these variables on individual lifesatisfaction and test the robustness of our results with Extreme Bounds Analysis. The results showthat only a small number of factors, such as openness, business climate, postcommunism, thenumber of chambers in parliament, Christian majority, and infant mortality robustly influence lifesatisfaction across countries while the importance of many variables suggested in the previousliterature is not confirmed. This remains largely true when the analysis splits national populationsaccording to gender, income and political orientation also.Life Satisfaction, Happiness, Institutions, Extreme Bounds Analysis

The bigger the better? Evidence of the effect of government size on life satisfaction around the world

This paper empirically analyzes the question whether government involvement in the economy is conducive or detrimental to life satisfaction in a cross-section of 74 countries. This provides a test of a longstanding dispute between standard neoclassical economic theory, which predicts that government plays an unambiguously positive role for individuals’ quality of life, and public choice theory, that was developed to understand why governments often choose excessive involvement and regulation, thereby harming voters’ quality of life. Our results show that life satisfaction decreases with higher government spending. This negative impact of the government is stronger in countries with a leftwing median voter. It is alleviated by government effectiveness – but only in countries where the state sector is already small.Life satisfaction, Government

Stuttgart 21: mit direkter Demokratie aus der Sackgasse?

Wäre der Entscheidungsprozess zu Stuttgart 21 (S21) anders verlaufen, wenn es in Baden-Württemberg wirksame Mittel direkt-demokratischer Mitbestimmung gegeben hätte? Ziel dieses Beitrag ist es, Grenzen und Möglichkeiten direkt-demokratischer Verfahren am Beispiel des Großprojekts S21 aufzuzeigen. Die politökonomische Theorie sowie die empirische Evidenz für die Schweiz und die USA lassen darauf schließen, dass möglicherweise der Entscheidungsprozess transparenter und das Ergebnis finanziell, infrastrukturell und politisch eher im Sinne der Mehrheit der Bürger und damit insgesamt wohlfahrtserhöhend ausgefallen wäre. Referenden für Großprojekte und vergleichbar richtungweisende Entscheidungen könnten helfen, die bestehende Kluft zwischen Bürgern und Politikern zu überwinden, und eine neue politische Kultur des Miteinanders zu begründen.Direct democracy, Initiative, Referendum, Popular vote

The effect of pension generosity on early retirement : a microdata analysis for Europe from 1967 to 2004

Using pseudo-panel microdata we show that pension generosity affects early retirement decisions. The changes in the average replacement rate and decreases in wealth accrual between 1967 and 2004 have caused an increase in early retirement probabilities from 16% to 63%

On the relation between income inequality and happiness: Do fairness perceptions matter?

In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the perceived fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a two-period model of individual life-time utility maximization, we predict that persons with higher perceived fairness will experience higher levels of life-time utility and are less in favor of income redistribution. In societies with a high level of actual social mobility, income inequality is perceived more positively with increased expected fairness. The opposite is expected for countries with low actual social mobility, due to an increasing relevance of a disappointment effect resulting from unsuccessful individual investments. Using the World Values Survey data and a broad set of fairness measures, we find strong support for the negative (positive) association between fairness perceptions and the demand for more equal incomes (subjective well-being). We also find strong empirical support for the disappointment effect in low social mobility countries. In contrast, the results for high-mobility countries turn out to be ambiguous