Results

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Happy to help: welfare effects of a nationwide volunteering programme

We study the wellbeing returns from volunteering in England's National Health Service (NHS) Volunteer Responders, set up in response to Covid-19. Using linked survey and administrative data, we exploit the oversubscripti...Read more...

Journal article

Energy Economics:

Are friends electric? Valuing the social costs of power lines using house prices

Overhead electrical power lines and pylons have long raised concerns regarding the effects of electromagnetic fields on health, noise pollution and the visual impact on rural landscapes. These issues are once again salie...Read more...

Chapter

The evolution of gender in the labor market

in Handbook of Labor Economics

This chapter traces the evolution of the study of gender in the labor market, focusing on how academic thinking on this topic has evolved alongside real world developments in gender inequality from the 1980s to the prese...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization:

Does growing up in economic hard times increase compassion? The case of attitudes towards immigration

There is some evidence that people who grew up in economic hard times more strongly favor government redistribution and are more compassionate towards the poor. We investigate how inclusive this increase in compassion is...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The distributional effects of trade: theory and evidence from the United States

How much do consumption patterns matter for the impact of international trade on inequality? In neoclassical trade models, the effects of trade shocks on consumers' purchasing power are governed by the shares of imports ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are friends electric? Valuing the social costs of power lines using house prices

Overhead electrical power lines and pylons have long raised concerns regarding the effects of electromagnetic fields on health, noise pollution and the visual impact on rural landscapes. These issues are once again salie...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Fighting climate change: International attitudes toward climate policies

Climate policies to limit global warming have often been difficult to pass and implement. In exploring the policy preferences of over 40,000 people in 20 high- and middle-income countries, the authors find that whether p...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Young people's university plans: evidence from German reunification

Around a decade after Germany's reunification, a long-standing educational gap between the east and west of the country - completion of the certificate needed to enter university - had closed. Ghazala Azmat and Katja Kau...Read more...

Journal article

Social Science and Medicine:

"Better the devil you know": are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?

Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4000 members of the UK and US public to make various choices betw...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices

Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large, while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps seem to have weakened over time. We explore the possibility that women a...Read more...

Journal article

World Trade Review:

The pursuit of non-trade policy objectives in EU trade policy

The European Union (EU) often conditions preferential access to its market on compliance with Non-Trade Policy Objectives (NTPOs), including human rights and labor and environmental standards. In this paper, we first sys...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

"Better the devil you know": are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?

Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4,000 members of the public in the UK and the US to make various ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Happy to help: NHS volunteering in Covid-19 times

The Covid-19 crisis prompted thousands to register as NHS Volunteer Responders, helping vulnerable people with small daily tasks like shopping. Christian Krekel and colleagues find big increases in wellbeing among those ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

A local community course that raises wellbeing and pro-sociality: evidence from a randomised controlled trial

Despite a wealth of research on its correlates, relatively little is known about how to effectively raise wellbeing in local communities by means of intervention. Can we teach people to live happier lives, cost-effective...Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19:

Happy to help: how a UK micro-volunteering programme increased people's wellbeing

Levels of wellbeing increased significantly for individuals who participated in the NHS Volunteer Responders (NHSVR) programme, with effects lasting months after the volunteering period had ended, write Paul Dolan, Chris...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Happy to help: welfare effects of a nationwide volunteering programme

We study the wellbeing benefits from volunteering in England's National Health Service (NHS) Volunteer Responders programme, which was set up in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using combined survey and administrative...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Formation of college plans: expected returns, preferences and adjustment process

We exploit a large exogenous shock to study the determinants of college attendance and the role played by one's environment. We analyze whether, and how quickly, adolescents' college plans are adapted, explore factors le...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does growing up in a recession increase compassion? The case of attitudes towards immigration

Macroeconomic conditions during young adulthood have a persistent impact on people's attitudes and preferences. The seminal paper by Giuliano and Spilimbergo (2014) shows that people who grew up in a recession are more l...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Happier lives: exploring what matters

Can we teach people to live happier and more pro-social lives? Are there cost-effective and scalable interventions? And could the effects be sustained over time? Christian Krekel and colleagues have evaluated the impact ...Read more...

Journal article

World Economy:

The not-so-generalised effects of the Generalized System of Preferences

We use an empirical gravity equation to study how non-reciprocal trade preferences (NRTPs), enacted mainly through the Generalized System of Preferences, affect the exports of the beneficiary nations. In line with existi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A local community course that raises mental wellbeing and pro-sociality

Although correlates of mental wellbeing have been extensively studied, relatively little is known about how to effectively raise mental wellbeing in local communities by means of intervention. We conduct a randomised con...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The gig economy and workers' preferences for steady jobs

Is the rise of gig work, freelancing, zero hours contracts and self-employment a result of people wanting such work or because they have no other choice? Nikhil Datta finds that while workers in the gig economy may like ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Willing to pay for security: a discrete choice experiment to analyse labour supply preferences

This paper investigates the extent to which labour supply preferences are responsible for the marked rise in atypical work arrangements in the UK and US. By employing vignettes in a discrete job choice experiment in a re...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The not-so-generalized effects of the generalized system of preferences

We use an empirical gravity equation approach to study how nonreciprocal trade preferences (NRTPs), enacted mainly through the Generalized System of Preferences, affect the exports of the beneficiary nations. In line wit...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Can raising instructional time crowd out student pro-social behaviour? Unintended consequences of a German high school reform

We study whether raising instructional time can crowd out student pro-social behaviour. To this end, we exploit a large educational reform in Germany that has raised weekly instructional hours for high school students by...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What?s in a name? Expectations, heuristics and choice during a period of radical school reform

Education policy worldwide has sought to incentivize school improvement and facilitate pupil-school matching by introducing reforms that promote autonomy and choice. Understanding the way in which families form preferenc...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Superstar houses and the American mortgage frenzy

Clement Bellet shows how visible wealth inequality fuelled the US mortgage boom that preceded the financial crisis....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The paradox of the Joneses: superstar houses and mortgage frenzy in suburban America

Despite a major upscaling of suburban houses over the last decades, house satisfaction has remained steady in the United States. I show that upward comparison in size can explain this paradox, as top housing size mirrore...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices

Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps have weakened over time. Here, we explore the possibility that women and ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Where does the wind blow? Green preferences and spatial misallocation in renewable energy sector

Are "greener" investments less efficient? This paper looks at the location choices by wind power investors. I measures the efficiency loss in this sector due to wrong project location and explore the factors contributing...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Special and differential treatment for developing countries

Special and Differential Treatment for Developing Countries (SDT) constitutes a central feature of the GATT/WTO system. Its formal goal is to foster export-led growth in developing countries. Its theoretical foundations ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey

A large literature documents the correlates and causes of subjective well-being, or happiness. But few studies have investigated whether people choose happiness. Is happiness all that people want from life, or are they w...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?

We discuss the contribution of the experimental literature to the understanding of both traditional and previously unexplored dimensions of gender differences and discuss their bearings on labor market outcomes. Experime...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Gender and the labour market: evidence from experiments

Lab experiments are an increasingly valuable tool for understanding differences in how men and women are treated in the labour market. Dr Ghazala Azmat and Professor Barbara Petrongolo explore what has been learned about...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?

We discuss the contribution of the experimental literature to the understanding of both traditional and previously unexplored dimensions of gender differences and discuss their bearings on labor market outcomes. Experime...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Looking ahead: subjective time perception and individual time discounting

Time discounting is at the heart of economic decision-making. We disentangle hyperbolic discounting from subjective time perception using experimental data from incentive-compatible tests to measure time preferences, and...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Estimating Bayesian decision problems with heterogeneous priors

In many areas of economics there is a growing interest in how expertise and preferences drive individual and group decision making under uncertainty. Increasingly, we wish to estimate such models to quantify which of the...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Whether to Hire Local Contract Teachers? Trade-off Between Skills and Preferences in India

Whether to hire teachers locally on a contract basis, or via competitive examinations as government officials, is a major policy question in developing countries. We use a Discrete Choice Experiment to assess the job pre...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Priors and Desires

This paper offers a simple but powerful model of wishful thinking, cognitive dissonance, and related biases. Choices maximize subjective expected utility, but beliefs depend on the decision maker's interests as well as o...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Theory of Values

Economists have a well-developed theory of value but the theory of why people hold the values they do is rudimentary at best. In spite of the fact that it is common to argue that values are important, most work on values...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students

We study the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on performance under piece-rate incentives. A natural experiment that took place in a high school offers an unusual opportunity to test this effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Comparing Willingness-to-Pay and Subjective Well-Being in the Context of Non-Market Goods

In order to value non-market goods, economists estimate individuals? willingness to pay (WTP) for these goods using revealed or stated preference methods. We compare these conventional approaches with subjective well-bei...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

The marginal utility of income

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income increases. One needs this parameter for cost-benefit analysis, for optimal taxation and for the (Atkinson) me...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Respect

Becker (1974) introduced to modern economics the idea that others care about what others think about them and derived many useful insights from this assumption. But he did not provide a very complete description of the g...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Marginal Utility of Income

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income increases. One needs this parameter for cost-benefit analysis, for optimal taxation and for the (Atkinson) me...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Youth-Adult Differences in the Demand for Unionisation: Are American, British, and Canadian Workers All That Different?

This paper examines demand for union membership amongst young workers in Britain, Canada and the United States. The paper benchmarks youth demands for collective representation against those of adult workers and finds th...Read more...