The Journal of socio-economics最新文献

This paper examines whether intergenerational transmission of happiness exists in China between preadolescents and their parents, and what factors are correlated with subjective well-being among them. We find that parents’ and their children's levels of subjective well-being are indeed significantly correlated, yet the factors that affect their well-being differ. Higher income, being a female, higher education, good health, and not being divorced result in higher well-being among the parents. Preadolescents’ well-being is instead determined by different kinds of interactions with peers and parents, where being bullied or not is one of the most important factors.

This paper contributes to the debate on the adequate elicitation of individual risk attitudes in general socio-economic surveys. A multi-item question on the willingness to take risk, a very short form of the DOSPERT scale (Weber et al., 2002) and a series of lottery tasks are compared with respect to the quality of the answers and the predictive validity of the derived risk measures. The quality of the collected data appears to be high. All the measures are informative about individual's attitudes while item nonresponse is mostly unproblematic. The measures however differ in their predictive power, with the lottery-based measures exhibiting only weak predictive validity. When the scope of the assessment is to predict behaviour, domain specific risk measures seem to be more appropriate. Embedding a short DOSPERT scale in general surveys appears to be very promising for empirical applications in social sciences that use survey-based risk measures.

This article is interested in how efficiently individuals can use available information, and if this will translate into efficient outcomes at the market level. Our use of available information in markets is further specified by evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology, which extend core theory and evidence in behavioral finance throughout the reviewed literature. The survey of the social, biological and physical literature is integrative, and demonstrates how evolved design at the individual level can interact with a market environment that evolves as a complex adaptive system. In general, the analysis also highlights the central importance of complex systems in the study of rational and efficient markets.

Paper presents results of an evaluation of a tax-time savings program. $aveNYC offers incentivized savings accounts to taxpayers filing their taxes at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites in New York City. Participants who direct-deposited at least $200 of their refund into the account and maintained the balance for a year received 50 cents per dollar saved. A comparison group was drawn from NYC VITA sites where the program was not offered. Propensity score weighting was used to balance the two groups. Study participants (N = 353) were surveyed via telephone halfway through the program, and again 8 months after the program ended. 70 percent of $aveNYC participants surveyed received the match. The majority of those who received the match continued to save some portion of the money. At the second survey, there was no significant difference between groups in savings amount; this finding may be due to measurement limitations. $aveNYC participants were less likely than comparison group members to have skipped paying bills or taken out a loan during the study period, and were more likely to have withdrawn money from savings. Findings suggest that tax-time savings programs can result in sustained emergency savings and prevent reliance on borrowing and unpaid bills.

We investigate voluntary contribution to public goods in culturally heterogeneous groups with a laboratory experiment conducted among 432 Hindu and Muslim subjects in India. With our specification of ‘Leading by example’ we test for an interaction effect between leadership and religious heterogeneity in a high stake environment. While cultural diversity does not affect contributions in the standard linear Public Goods Game, it reduces cooperation in the presence of a leader. Furthermore, we show that preferences for conditional cooperation are only prevalent in pure groups. In mixed groups, poor leadership and uncertainty about followers’ reciprocity hinders the functionality of leadership as an institutional device to resolve social dilemmas.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the impact of life satisfaction on the individual intention to migrate. The impacts of individual characteristics and of country macroeconomic variables on the intention to migrate are analyzed jointly. Using the Eurobarometer Survey for 27 Central and Eastern European (CEE) and Western European (non-CEE) countries, we find that people have a greater intention to migrate when dissatisfied with life. The socioeconomic variables and macroeconomic conditions affect the intention to migrate indirectly through life satisfaction. At all levels of life satisfaction, individuals with similar characteristics have greater intentions to migrate from CEE countries than from non-CEE countries. These findings underscore the importance of individual life satisfaction not only as a strong predictor of the individual migration intention, but also as a mediator between individual socioeconomic variables and macroeconomic conditions and that intention.