258,987 research outputs found
Limited Self-Control, Obesity and the Loss of Happiness
No full textObesity 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
Development of Direct Democracy in Swiss Cantons between 1997 and 2003
No full textThis paper describes institutions of direct democracy between 1997 and 2003 in 26 Swiss cantons (states), specifically the statutory initiative and referendum, the constitutional initiative, and the fiscal referendum. In particular, it discusses their applications, but also the legal requirements for making use of them, including the signature requirements, the time available for their collection, and the financial thresholds. Optional and mandatory forms of these direct-legislative institutions are distinguished. This paper also provides calculations of the index and sub-indices of direct democracy for the additional years 1997 to 2003, in continuation of Stutzer (1999), using the identical methodology. Extending Trechsel and Serdült (1999) and Stutzer (1999) this paper includes the political institutions of the so-called Landsgemeinde cantons. Description of these institutions is based on the author’s reading of 26 cantonal constitutions in their versions between 1997 and 2003.institutions; direct democracy; direct legislation; initiative; referendum; fiscal referendum; constitution; Switzerland: culture
Economic Consequences of Mispredicting Utility
No full textA framework is proposed for organizing phenomena related to the (mis)prediction of utility, in particular neglecting adaptation. A categorization is introduced that accounts for asymmetries in misprediction. In decision-making, goods and activities satisfying extrinsic desires are more salient than those serving intrinsic needs. Accordingly, there is an overconsumption of the former compared to the latter. The theoretical analysis is consistent with econometric evidence on commuting choice using data on subjective well-being. People show substantial adaptation to a higher labor income but not to commuting. This may account for the finding that people are not compensated for the burden of commuting.adaptation, extrinsic/intrinsic attributes, individual decision-making, misprediction, subjective well-being, time allocation
Economic consequences of mispredicting utility
No full textIn a simple conceptual framework, we organize a multitude of phenomena related to the (mis)prediction of utility. Consequences in terms of distorted choices and lower wellbeing emerge if people have to trade-off between alternatives that are characterized by attributes satisfying extrinsic desires and alternatives serving intrinsic needs. Thereby the neglect of asymmetries in adaptation is proposed as an important driver. The theoretical analysis is consistent with econometric evidence on commuting choice using data on subjective wellbeing. People show substantial adaptation to a higher labor income but not to commuting. This may account for the finding that people are not compensated for the burden of commuting
Approval of Equal Rights and Gender - Differences in Well-Being
No full textWomen 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
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed?: Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap between the Public and Private Sectors
No full textHigh rates of unemployment entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular, job security, in workers' well-being by exploiting sector-specific institutional differences in the exposure to economic shocks. Public servants have stricter dismissal protection and face a lower risk of their organization's bankruptcy than do private sector employees. The empirical results for individual panel data for Germany and repeated cross-sectional data for the United States and the European Union show that the sensitivity of subjective well-being to fluctuations in unemployment rates is much lower in the public sector than in the private. This suggests that increased economic insecurity constitutes an important welfare loss associated with high general unemployment.Unemployment, life satisfaction, job security, public sector
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
On Some Optimization Problems that Can Be Solved in O(n) Time
No full textWe consider nine elementary problems in optimization. We simply explore the conditions for optimality as known from the duality theory for convex optimization. This yields a quite straightforward solution method for each of these problems. The main contribution of this paper is that we show that even in the harder cases the solution needs only O(n) time.Accepted author manuscriptDiscrete Mathematics and Optimizatio
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