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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2010‒05‒15
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Giorgio Brunello; Daniele Fabbri; Margherita Fort |
| Abstract: | We find that the protective effect of years of schooling on the BMI of European females is non negligible, but smaller than the one recently found for the US. By using individual standardized cognitive tests instead of years of schooling as the measure of education we show that the current focus in the literature on years of schooling is not misplaced. We also investigate whether the response to changes in compulsory education is heterogeneous, and find that the protective effect of schooling is stronger among overweight than among obese females. |
| Keywords: | obesity, human capital, Europe |
| JEL: | I12 I21 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpc:wplist:wp02_10&r=ltv |
| By: | Martinsson, Peter (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Myrseth, Kristian Ove R. (ESMT European School of Management and Technology); Wollbrant, Conny (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | We test the proposition that individuals may experience a self-control conflict between short-term temptation to be selfish and better judgment to act pro-socially. Using a dictator game and a public goods game, we manipulated the likelihood that individuals identified self-control conflict, and we measured their trait ability to implement self-control strategies. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that trait self-control exhibits a positive and significant correlation with pro-social behavior in the treatment that raises likelihood of conflict identification, but not in the treatment that reduces likelihood of conflict identification.<p> |
| Keywords: | self-control; pro-social behavior; altruism; experiment. |
| JEL: | D01 D64 D70 |
| Date: | 2010–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0445&r=ltv |
| By: | Johansson-Stenman, Olof (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses how a decision maker should deal with uncertainty, both in the sense of a well-known probability distribution of different outcomes and as a situation where also the probability distribution is unknown. A simple baseline model is used throughout the paper, where the decision maker can invest in order to decrease the health risk. Since the investment is risky, the question concerns how much to invest. We derive and compare the optimal investment level for a number of different decision rules: a best guess rule, a maximin rule, an expected value rule, an expected utility rule, and three different rules that beyond risk aversion also reflect ambiguity aversion. Finally, these decision rules are evaluated more broadly.<p> |
| Keywords: | Investment under uncertainty; risk aversion; ambiguity aversion |
| JEL: | D81 H51 I18 |
| Date: | 2010–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0443&r=ltv |