Impact of the 2009 WIC Revision on Infant and Maternal Health: A Quasi-experimental Multi-state Study

with Guangyi Wang, Marianne Bitler, Dean Schillinger, Steven Stillman and Rita Hamad 

Improving food security and dietary quality during pregnancy is vital for maternal and infant health. Poor nutrition can lead to adverse fetal development and complications for women. In 2009, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, and Children (WIC), a US safety net program for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding or postpartum women and young children, was revised to improve dietary quality, promoting intake of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Prior studies found the revision improved dietary quality, but its impact on downstream health is less understood. We analyzed 2008-2012 national birth certificate data (N=11,855,417) and employed a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences analysis to examine pre-post trends in outcomes among women predicted to be to be eligible for WIC (treatment group) while “differencing” out pre-post trends among predicted WIC-ineligible women (control group). Outcomes include infant birth weight and size for gestational age, and maternal gestational-diabetes-mellitus (GDM) and gestational-weight gain (GWG).The 2009 WIC revision was associated with small reductions in birth weight (-3.52 grams; 95%CI, -4.75 to -2.30) and small-for-gestational-age (-0.08% points; 95%CI, -0.15, - 0.01), and GWG (-0.05 pounds; 95%CI, -0.09, -0.02). While the results were robust to most sensitivity tests, they were not for some and therefore should be interpreted cautiously. Disparities emerged in the impact on GDM and GWG across subgroups. The limited evidence of positive effects on infant and maternal health underscores the need for ongoing research to better understand the impact of the 2019 WIC revision, including implementation factors and program design, on downstream health.

In: Social Science and Medicine, forthcoming (last updated in March 2025)

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How Does Parental Divorce Affect Children's Long-Term Outcomes?

with Wolfgang Frimmel and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer 

Many papers report a negative association between parental divorce and child outcomes. To provide evidence whether this correlation is causal, we exploit idiosyncratic variation in the extent of gender balance in fathers' workplaces. Fathers encountering more women in their relevant age–occupation–group at the workplace are more likely to divorce. This result is conditional upon the total share of female co-workers in a firm and detailed industry affiliation. Parental divorce has persistent, and mostly negative, effects on children that differ between boys and girls. Treated boys have lower levels of educational attainment, worse labor market outcomes and are more likely to die early. Treated girls also have lower levels of educational attainment, but they are also more likely to have children at an early age (especially during teenage years). However, treated girls lose less in terms of employment. This could be a direct consequence from the teenage motherhood, initiating an early entry to the labor market.

In: Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming (last updated in June 2024)

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Media: [ORF.at] [derStandard] [Der Kurier] [Tiroler Tageszeitung][New York Post][DailyMail]
Blogs: VOXEU.org, Ökonomenstimme.org

Persistent Low Inequality Despite Compositional Shifts in Austria

with Andrea Weber

Overall, income inequality in Austria is moderate and has been stable in recent years. However, a look at employment statistics reveals important inequality trends in the labor market. This paper highlights five important shifts in the composition of the labor force: (i) a massive increase in female labor force participation, (ii) large shifts in the distribution of education, (iii) trends toward part-time work among women as well as men, (iv) persistent gender gaps in market and non-market work of parents, and (v) an increase in labor migration with a substantial share of cross-border commuters.

In: Fiscal Studies, forthcoming (last updated in June 2024)

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Media: DiePresse

Violent Conflict and the Child Quantity-Quality Tradeoff

with Apsara Karki Nepal and Steven Stillman

We show that the exposure to war-related violence increases the quantity of children temporarily, with permanent negative consequences for the quality of the current and previous cohorts. Our empirical evidence is based on Nepal, which experienced a ten year long civil conflict of varying intensity. We exploit that villages affected by the conflict had the same trend in fertility as non-affected villages prior to the onset of conflict and employ a difference-in-differences estimator. We find that women in affected villages increased their fertility during the conflict by 19 percent, while child height-for-age declined by 10 percent. Supporting evidence suggests that the temporary fertility increase was the main pathway leading to reduced child height, as opposed to direct impacts of the conflictt.

In: Journal of Demographic Economics, forthcoming (last updated in June 2023)

Download: [paper] [article]

Health of Parents, their Children's Labor Supply, and the Role of Migrant Care Workers

with Wolfgang Frimmel, Jörg Paetzold & Julia Schmieder

We estimate the impact of parental health on adult children's labor market outcomes. We focus on health shocks that increase care dependency abruptly. Our estimation strategy exploits the variation in the timing of shocks across treated families. Empirical results based on Austrian administrative data show a significant negative impact on the labor market activities of children. This effect is more pronounced for daughters and for children who live close to their parents. Further analyses suggest informal caregiving as the most likely mechanism. Finally, we exploit a  liberalization of the formal care market, which led to a sharp increase in the supply of foreign care workers. This reform significantly reduced the negative effect of a parental health shock on their children's labor market outcomes.

Forthcoming in the Journal of Labor Economics (last updated in March 2023)

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Media: DiePresse

Mass Gatherings Contributed to Early COVID-19 Spread: Evidence from US Sports

with Alexander Ahammer and Mario Lackner

Social distancing is important to slow the community spread of infectious disease, but it creates enormous economic and social cost. Thus, it is important to quantify the benefits of different measures. We study the ban of mass gatherings, an intervention with comparably low cost. We exploit exogenous variation in the number of NBA and NHL games, which arises due to the leagues’ predetermined schedules, and the sudden suspension of the 2019–20 seasons. We find that, among clusters of counties that are adjacent to sports venues, each additional mass gathering increased the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths by 10.3 percent..

In: Contemporary Economic Policy, 2023, Vol. 41(3), 471--488.

This paper won the 2023 Best Paper award from the journal’s editors.

Previous version available in CEPR's Covid Economics,  Vetted and Real-Time Papers, Issue 30. Updated version (July 29) below.

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Media:  [Forbes], [DieWelt]

The Intergenerational Persistence of Opioid Dependence: Evidence from Administrative Data

with Alexander Ahammer

To address the opioid crisis, it is crucial to understand its origins. We provide descriptive evidence for the intergenerational persistence of opioid dependence. Our analysis is based on administrative data covering the universe of Upper Austrian births from 1984 to 1990. We consider prescription opioids and a new proxy for addiction to illicit opioids. We find that, if at least one parent is using illicit opioids, the likelihood of the child using increases from 1 to 7%. For prescription opioids, we observe an increase from 3.6 to 6.7%. Both associations are stable and do not change when controlling for environmental variables.

In: Health Economics, 2022, Vol. 31 (11),  2425-2444.

Downloads: [paper] [article, open access] [tweet]

Paying Adolescents for Health Screenings Works

with Gerald J. Pruckner & Thomas Schober

With regard to their future health, adolescents are at a critical stage. Previous evaluations have shown that health screenings, counselling, and other intervention programmes during this phase of life are important, particularly for those with a low socio-economic background. Unfortunately, adolescents tend to have little interest in preventive programmes. We designed a field experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of financial incentives to promote participation in health screenings. Our study comprises more than 10,000 participants, observed via high-quality administrative data from Austria. The treatment group received a Euro 40 shopping voucher if they participated in an age-specific health screening. On average, the financial incentive increased the likelihood of participation by 280%. Treatment effects are comparably larger for children in families with a higher socio-economic status, and of parents with a revealed preference for secondary health prevention.

In: American Journal of Health Economics, 2022, Vol. 8(4).

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Minimum Legal Drinking Age and the Social Gradient in Binge Drinking

with Alexander Ahammer, Stefan Bauernschuster & Hannah Lachenmaier

Low minimum legal drinking ages (MLDAs), as prevalent in many European countries, are severely understudied. We use rich survey and administrative data to estimate the impact of the Austrian MLDA of 16 on teenage drinking behavior and morbidity. Regression discontinuity estimates show that legal access to alcohol increases the frequency and intensity of drinking, which results in more hospital admissions due to alcohol intoxication. The effects are stronger for boys and teenagers with low socioeconomic background. Evidence suggests that the policy's impact cannot be fully explained by access. Data from an annual large-scale field study show that about 25 percent of retailers sell even hard liquor to underage customers. More generally, perceived access to alcohol is very high and hardly changes at the MLDA. However, teenagers consider binge drinking at weekends to be less harmful after gaining legal access.

In: Journal of Health Economics, 2022, Vol. 81, 102571.

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Media: [BBC] [VOXEU.org] [DiePresse] [Krone] [OÖN] [ORF]

Parental Leave, (In)formal Child-care and Long-term Child Outcome

with Natalia Danzer, Nicole Schneeweis, and Martina Zweimüller

We evaluate the effect of an Austrian parental leave extension from the child’s first to its second birthday on long-term child outcomes. Our identification is based on a sharp birth-day cutoff-based discontinuity in the eligibility for extended parental leave. Our results show that a longer parental leave duration improves on average child health outcomes, but has no effect on the child’s labor market outcomes. The estimated treatment effects differ substantially according to the availability of formal childcare and the mother’s counter-factual work behavior. This suggests that accounting for the counterfactual mode of care is important in the evaluation of parental leave reforms. Our analysis of treatment effect heterogeneity reveals significant gains in all outcomes for children, for whom the reform most likely induced a replacement of informal childcare with maternal care. 

In: Journal of Human Resources, 2022, Vol. 57(6), 1826-1884.

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [slides] [tweet]  

Grandmothers' Labor Supply 

with Wolfgang Frimmel, Bernhard Schmidpeter, and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

The labor supply effects of becoming a grandmother are not well established in the empirical literature. We use high-quality administrative data from Austria to estimate the effect of grandmotherhood on the labor supply decision of older workers. Under the assumption that grandmothers cannot predict the exact date of conception of their grand-child, we identify the effect of the first grandchild on employment (extensive margin). Our Timing-of-Events approach shows that having a first grandchild increases the probability of leaving the labor market by 9 percent. This effect is stronger when informal childcare is more valuable to the mother, and when grandmothers live close to the grandchild. To assess the effect of an additional grandchild (intensive margin), we estimate the reduced-form effect of a twin-birth among the first grandchild on grandmothers’ labor supply. Our estimations show a significant effect of a further grandchild. Our results highlight the important influence of the extended family on the decisions of older workers and point to heterogeneity across institutional settings and families. 

In: Journal of Human Resources

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Cutting Fertility? The Effect of Cesarean Deliveries on Subsequent Fertility and Maternal Labor Supply

with Harald Mayr, Gerald J. Pruckner, and Pilar Garcia-Gomez

Despite the growing incidence of cesarean deliveries (CDs), procedure costs and benefits continue to be controversially discussed. In this study, we identify the effects of CDs on subsequent fertility and maternal labor supply by exploiting the fact that obstetricians are less likely to undertake CDs on weekends and public holidays and have a greater incentive to perform them on Fridays and days preceding public holidays. To do so, we adopt high-quality administrative data from Austria. Women giving birth on different days of the week are pre-treatment observationally identical. Our instrumental variable estimates show that a non-planned CD at parity 0 decreases lifecycle fertility by almost 13.6 percent. This reduction in fertility translates into a temporary increase in maternal employment. 

In: Journal of Health Economics, 2020, Vol. 72. 

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [slides] [tweet] 

Economic Origins of Cultural Norms: The Case of Animal Husbandry and Bastardy

with Christoph Eder

This paper explores the historical origins of the cultural norm regarding illegitimacy (formerly known as bastardy) in the context of the Habsburg Empire. We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural production structures influenced the historical illegitimacy ratio, and have a lasting effect until today. We show that regions that focused in pre-industrial periods on animal husbandry (as compared to crop farming) had significantly higher illegitimacy ratios in the past, and female descendants of these societies are still more likely to approve illegitimacy and give birth outside of marriage today. To establish causality, we exploit for Austria, within an IV approach, variation in the local agricultural suitability, which determined the historical dominance of animal husbandry. Since differences in the agricultural production structure are completely obsolete in today’s economy,we suggest interpreting the persistence in revealed and stated preferences as a cultural norm. Complementary evidence shows that this norm is passed down through generations, and the family is the most important transmission channel. Our findings are one example for the more general phenomenon that cultural norms can be shaped by economic conditions, and may persist, even if economic conditions become irrelevant. 

In: European Economic Review, 2020, Vol. 125. 

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The Effect of Prenatal Maternity Leave on Short and Long-term Child Outcomes

with Alexander Ahammer and Nicole Schneweeis

Maternity leave policies are designed to safeguard the health of pregnant workers and their unborn children. We evaluate a maternity leave extension in Austria which increased mandatory prenatal leave from 6 to 8 weeks. We exploit that the assignment to the extended leave was determined by a cutoff date. We find no evidence for significant effects oft his extension on children’s health at birth or long-term health and labor market outcomes.Subsequent maternal health and fertility are also unaffected. We conclude that employment during the 33rd and 34th week of gestation is not harmful for expecting mothers (without major problems in pregnancy) and their unborn children. 

In: Journal of Health Economics, 2020, Vol. (70).

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Job Displacement, Family Dynamics and Spousal Labor Supply

with Julia Schmieder and Andrea Weber

We study the effectiveness of intra-household insurance among married couples when the husband loses his job due to a mass layoff or plant closure. Empirical results based on Austrian administrative data show that husbands suffer persistent employment and earnings losses, while wives’ labor supply increases moderately due to extensive margin responses. Wives’ earnings gains recover only a tiny fraction of the household income loss and, in the short-term, public transfers and taxes are a more important form of insurance. We show that the presence of children in the household is a crucial determinant of the wives’ labor supply response. 

In: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2020, Vol. 12(4).

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Media: [VoxEU]

The Intergenerational Causal Effect of Tax Evasion: Evidence from the Commuter Tax Allowance in Austria 

with  Wolfgang Frimmel and Jörg Paetzold 

Does tax evasion run in the family? To answer this question, we study the case of the commuter tax allowance in Austria. This allowance is designed as a step function of the distance between the residence and the workplace, creating sharp discontinuities at each bracket threshold. It turns out that the distance to the next higher bracket is a strong determinant of compliance. The match of different administrative data sources allows us to observe actual compliance behavior with little error at the individual level across two generations. To identify the intergenerational causal effect in tax evasion behavior, we use the paternal distance to next higher bracket as an instrumental variable for paternal compliance. We find that paternal non-compliance increases children’s non-compliance by about 23 percent.

In: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2019, Vol. 17(6).

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Immigration and Voting for the Far Right 

with  Alexander F. Wagner and Josef Zweimüller  

Does the presence of immigrants in one’s neighbourhood affect voting for far right-wing parties? We study the case of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) which, under the leadership of Jörg Haider, increased its vote share from less than 5 percent in the early 1980s to 27 percent by the end of the 1990s and continued to attract more than 20 percent of voters in the 2013 national election. We find that the inflow of immigrants into a community has a significant impact on the increase in the community’s voting share for the FPÖ, explaining roughly a tenth of the regional variation in vote changes. Our results suggest that voters worry about adverse labor market effects of immigration, as well as about the quality of their neighbourhood. In fact, we find evidence of a negative impact of immigration on “compositional amenities.” In communities with larger immigration influx, Austrian children commute longer distances to school, and fewer daycare resources are provided. We do not find evidence that Austrians move out of communities with increasing immigrant presence.   

In: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2017, Vol. 15(6), 1341–1385.

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Media: [VoxEu]

The Cost Savings of Developmental Screenings: Evidence from a Nationwide Program  

with  Gerald J. Pruckner and Thomas Schober   

Early intervention is considered the optimal response to developmental disorders in children. We evaluate a nationwide developmental screening program for preschoolers in Austria and the resulting interventions. Identification of treatment effects is determined by a birthday cutoff-based discontinuity in the eligibility for a financial incentive to participate in the screening. Assigned preschoolers are 14.5 percentage points more likely to participate in the program. For participants with high socioeconomic status (SES), we find little evidence for interventions and consistently no effect on healthcare costs in the long run. For low SES preschoolers, we find evidence for substantial interventions, but only weak evidence for cost savings in the long run. 

In: Journal of Health Economics, 2016, Vol. 49, 120–135.

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper]

Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries 

with  Mario Lackner and Johann Scharler    

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on demographic trends in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e. the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show that an expansion in the welfare state increases the fertility, marriage, and divorce rates with a quantitatively stronger effect on the marriage rate. We conclude that the welfare state supports family formation in the aggregate. Further, we find that the welfare state decouples marriage and fertility, and therefore, alters the organization of the average family.   

In: Scandinavian Journal of Economics,  2016, Vol. 118(2), 292–323. 

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Media: [TheHerald]

Do Joint Custody Laws Improve Family Well-Being  

Joint custody reforms increase the bargaining power of men within marriage and alter the allocation of resources within the household. The empirical evidence suggests that these shifts reinforce the traditional division of household labor, with both positive and negative effects. On the positive side, marriage and fertility rates rise, and male suicides and domestic violence decline. On the negative side, female labor supply drops, and average education and labor market outcomes for children worsen. Policymakers should acknowledge that regulating families’ post-divorce life may affect intact families and try to minimize any unintended negative consequences.  

In: IZA World of Labor, 2015, Vol. 147.

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The Effectiveness of Health Screening  

with Franz Hackl, Michael Hummer and Gerald J. Pruckner  

Using a matched insurant-general practitioner panel data set, we estimate the effect of a general health screening program on individuals’ health status and healthcare cost. To account for selection into treatment we use regional variation in the intensity of exposure to supply-determined screening recommendations as an instrumental variable. We find that screening participation increases in- and outpatient health care cost up to two years after treatment substantially. In the medium-run, we find cost savings in the outpatient sector whereas, in the long-run, no statistically significant effects of screening on either health care cost component can be discerned. In sum, screening participation increases health care cost. Given that we do not find any statistically significant effect of screening participation on insurants’ health status (at any point in time), we do not recommend a general health screening program. However, given that we find some evidence for cost-saving potential for the sub-sample of younger insurants, we suggest more targeted screening programs. 

In: Health Economics, 2015, Vol. 24(8), 913–935.

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Can Pro-Marriage Policies Work? An Analysis of Marginal Marriages  

with Wolfgang Frimmel and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer  

Policies to promote marriage are controversial, and it is unclear whether they are successful. To analyze such policies, it is essential to distinguish between a marriage that is created by a marriage-promoting policy (marginal marriage) and a marriage that would have been formed even in the absence of a state intervention (average marriage). In this paper, we exploit the suspension of a cash-on-hand marriage subsidy in Austria to examine the differential behavior of marginal and average marriages. The announcement of this suspension led to an enormous marriage boom (plus350percent) among eligible couples that allows us to locate marginal marriages. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we show that marginal marriages are surprisingly as stable as average marriages. However, they have fewer children, have them later in marriage, and their children are less healthy at birth. 

In: Demography 2014, Vol. 51(4), 1357–1359.

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] 

Taxes and Benefits: Two Options to Cheat on the State  

with Friedrich G. Schneider   

In this paper we study the social norms to abstain from cheating on the state via benefit fraud and tax evasion. We interpret these norms (called benefit morale and tax morale) as moral goods, and derive testable hypotheses on whether their demand is determined by prices. Employing a large survey data set from OECD-member countries we provide robust evidence that the demand responds to price proxy variables as predicted by theory. The main general conclusions of this paper is that social norms (which are widely accepted as determinants of individual economic behaviour) are themselves influenced by economic factors. 

In: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2014, Vol. 76(3), 411–431. 

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Media: [blogs] [correct?]

The Effect of Health on Earnings: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Commuting Accidents  

with Martina Zweimüller    

This paper interprets accidents occurring on the way to and from work as negative health shocks to identify the causal effect of health on labor market outcomes. We argue that in our sample of exactly matched injured and non-injured workers, these health shocks (predominantly impairments in the musculoskeletal system) are quasi-randomly assigned. A fixed-effects difference-in-differences approach estimates a negative and persistent effect on subsequent employment and earnings. After initial periods with a higher incidence of sick leave, injured workers are more likely to be unemployed, and a growing share of them leave the labor market via disability retirement. Injured workers who manage to stay in employment incur persistent earnings losses. The effects are somewhat stronger for sub-groups of workers who are typically less attached to the labor market.

In: Labour Economics, 2013, Vol. 24, 23–38.

Downloads: [article] [paper] 

Assortative Mating and Divorce: Evidence from Austrian Register Data  

with Wolfgang Frimmel and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer     

We show that changes in assortative mating patterns along the dimensions of age, ethnicity, religion and education are not responsible for the increasing marital instability over the last four decades in Austria. Without the rise in the age at marriage, divorce rates would be considerably higher. Immigration and secularization, and the resulting supply of spouses with diverse ethnicity and religious denominations had no overall effect on divorce rates. Countervailing effects in line with theoretical predictions offset each other. The rise in the incidence in divorce is most probably caused by increased social acceptance of divorce. 

In: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A  (Statistics in Society),  2013, Vol. 176(4), 907–929.

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The Effect of Joint Custody on Family Outcomes   

Since the 1970s almost all US states have introduced a form of joint custody after divorce. I analyze the causal effect of these custody law reforms on different family outcomes. My identification strategy exploits the different timing of reforms across the US states. Estimations based on state panel data suggest that the introduction of joint custody led to an increase in marriage rates, an increase in overall fertility (including a shift from non-marital to marital fertility), and an increase in divorce rates for older couples. Accordingly, female labor market participation decreased. Further, male suicide rates and domestic violence fell in treated states. The empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that joint custody increased the relative bargaining power of men within marriage. 

In: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2013, Vol. 11(2), 278–315. 

For his paper I was awarded the Young Labour Economist Prize at the 2008 Annual Conference of European Association of Labour Economists.

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Satisfaction with Democracy and Collective Action Problems: The Case of the Environment

with Friedrich G. Schneider and Alexander F. Wagner    

Whether a country is able effectively to address collective action problems is a critical test of its ability to fulfill the demands of its citizens to their satisfaction. We study one particularly important collective action problem: the environment. Using a large panel data set covering 25 years for some countries, we find that, overall, citizens of European countries are more satisfied with the way democracy works in their country if (a) more environmental policies are in place and if (b) expenditures on the environment are higher, but environmental taxes are lower. The relation between environmental policy and life satisfaction is not as pronounced. The evidence for the effect of environmental quality on both satisfaction with democracy and life satisfaction is not very clear, although we find evidence that citizens value personal mobility (in terms of having a car) highly, but view the presence of trucks as unpleasant. We also document that parents, younger citizens, and those with high levels of educational attainment tend to care more about environmental issues than do non-parents, older citizens, and those with fewer years of schooling. 

In: Public Choice 2013, Vol. 155(1–2), 109–137.

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [predecessor paper] [data&code]

Tax Morale and Compliance Behavior: First Evidence on a Causal Link    

Recent literature on tax evasion emphasizes the importance of moral considerations to explain compliance behavior. As a consequence scholars aim to identify factors that shape this so-called tax morale. However,the causal link between tax morale and actual compliance behavior is not established yet. Exploiting exogenous variation in tax morale –given by the inherited part of tax morale of American-born from their ancestors country of origin – our Two-Stage Least Square Estimation provides first evidence on a causal effect of tax morale on the size of the underground production. 

In: The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy: Advances  2012, Vol. 12(1). 

Downloads: [article] [paper] 

[data&code]

Media: The New Yorker

Volunteering and the State     

with Franz Hackl and Gerald J. Pruckner

This paper explores the capability of the state to affect the individual’s decision to work for free. For this purpose we combine individual-level data from the European and World Values Survey with macroeconomic and political variables for OECD member countries. Empirically we identify three channels for crowding out of voluntary labor. Firstly, an increase in public social expenditure decreases the probability that the individual will volunteer (fiscal crowding out). Secondly, a political consensus between individuals and the government also induces volunteers to reduce their unsalaried activities (consensual crowding out). And finally, the more a government supports democratization, the lower is the individual’s engagement (participatory crowding out). Religiosity and a more unequal income distribution in a country increase individuals’ willingness to volunteer. 

In: Public Choice 2012, Vol. 151(3–4), 465–495.

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Media: [VoxEu]

Marriage, Divorce and Interstate Risk Sharing      

with Johann Scharler 

In this paper we study the importance of marriage for interstate risk sharing. We find that US states in which married couples account for a higher share of the population are less exposed to state-specific output shocks. Thus, marriages do not just improve the allocation of risk at the individual level, but also have implications for the allocation of risk at the more aggregated state-level. Quantitatively, the impact of marriage on interstate risk sharing varies over divorce regimes. 

In: Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2012, Vol. 114(1), 55–78.

Downloads: [article] [paper]

An Empirical Analysis of the Dynamics of the Welfare State: The Case of Benefit Morale     

with Mario Lackner and Friedrich G. Schneider 

Does the supply of a welfare state create its own demand? Many economic scholars studying welfare arrangements refer to Say’s law and insinuate a self-destructive welfare state. However, little is known about the empirical validity of these assumptions and hypotheses. We study the dynamic effect of different welfare arrangements on benefit fraud. In particular, we analyze the impact of the welfare state on the respective social norm, i. e. benefit morale. It turns out that a high level of public social expenditures and a high unemployment rate are associated with a small positive (or no) immediate impact on benefit morale, which however is crowded out by adverse medium and long run effects.

In: Kyklos,  2010, Vol. 63(1), 55–74.

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [longer working paper version] [slides] [tweet]

The Quality of Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy in Western Europe – A Panel Analysis      

with Friedrich G. Schneider and Alexander F. Wagner 

This paper analyses how institutional factors affect satisfaction with democracy (SWD). It employs a panel of observations from Eurobarometers in the time span 1990–2000, and thus is one of the first studies to consider the longitudinal dimension of the driving forces of SWD. We find that high-quality institutions like the rule of law, well-functioning regulation, low corruption, and other institutions that improve resource allocation have a positive effect on average satisfaction with democracy. 

In: European Journal of Political Economy, 2009, Vol. 25(1), 30–41. 

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [slides] [tweet]

Non-Compliance under a Negative Income Tax      

with Friedrich G. Schneider

This paper analyses how institutional factors affect satisfaction with democracy (SWD). It employs a panel of observations from Eurobarometers in the time span 1990–2000, and thus is one of the first studies to consider the longitudinal dimension of the driving forces of SWD. We find that high-quality institutions like the rule of law, well-functioning regulation, low corruption, and other institutions that improve resource allocation have a positive effect on average satisfaction with democracy. 

In: Economics Bulletin, 2008, Vol. 8(8), 1–3.

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [slides] [tweet]

Die EU-Zinsenrichtlinie: Ein Schuss in den Ofen?

with Lars Gläser 

The ultimate aim of the EU Savings Tax Directive is the effective taxation of interest income. The EU has switched with the Directive from a policy which was based on trust in the citizens and on a certain degree of self‐determination, to a procedure which is characterized by distrust and monitoring. On the other hand the Directive's regulations which focus on the classical behavioural determinants of tax evasion seem to be insufficient. In sum, it is possible that the Directive has failed to achieve its goal. The integral mechanism of the Directive is tax‐related information exchange. Since tax‐related information exchange is a strategic variable for the member states to adjust the attractiveness of their financial markets, it is debatable whether existing loopholes in the national implementations are the result of hidden non‐cooperative behaviour of the member states.  

In: Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 2008, Vol. 9(1), 83–101 .

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [slides] [tweet]

Local Compensation Payments for Agri-Environmental Externalities – A Panel Data Analysis of Bargaining Outcomes 

with Franz Hackl and Gerald J. Pruckner

We analyse local compensation payments made to farmers for providing landscape amenities in Alpine tourist communities. These payments result from political bargaining at the municipal level. Panel data estimation shows that the probability of introducing compensation payments depends positively on the benefits of landscape amenities. Although no impact of service provision cost is found, transaction costs at different levels of the bargaining process reduce the probability of payments. Compensation payments mainly occur in communities where the provision of agricultural landscape services is perceived as relatively low and the diversity of the countryside seems to be endangered. We argue that municipal compensation payments are an important supplement to national and European Union policy measures in support of less-favoured areas.

In: European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2007, Vol. 34(3), 295–320. 

Downloads: [article] [web-appendix] [paper] [slides] [tweet]

Volunteering and Income: The Fallacy of the Good Samaritan?  

with Franz Hackl and Gerald J. Pruckner

This paper explores individual motives for volunteering. The analysis is based on the interpretation of volunteering as a consumption good (consumption model) or as a mean to increase individual’s own human capital (investment model). We present an econometric framework taking into account self selection into volunteering and simultaneity between the volunteering decision and the determination of income in order to test these two models and to identify the underlying motives. We find strong statistical evidence for the investment model with a highly robust and significant impact of volunteering on the wage rate. Within the framework of the investment model it turns out that the number of volunteering hours plays a major role in explaining this wage premium. This supports the significance of skill acquisition to accumulate human capital, the importance of deepening of social contacts and signalling willingness to perform. As far as the consumption model is concerned we find no clear statistical evidence for its validity. 

In: Kyklos, 2007, Vol. 60(1), 77–104 .

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Unterhalt, Obsorge und Scheidungsanwälte: Eine ökonometrische Untersuchung der einvernehmlichen Scheidung in Österreich   

Im Jahr 2003 wurden 88,4% aller Scheidungen in Österreich im Einvernehmen geschieden. Die einvernehmliche Scheidung erfordert – wenn beide Ehegatten die Scheidung wünschen – nur eine Vereinbarung der wesentlichen Scheidungsfolgen. Anhand von Scheidungsakten der Jahre 1997 bis 2003 eines österreichischen Bezirksgerichtes werden diese Scheidungsvereinbarungen analysiert. Der Ehegatten- und der Kindesunterhalt werden simultan geschätzt. Es zeigt sich unter anderem, dass die Höhe des Ehegattenunterhaltes mit den getätigten beziehungsspezifischen Investitionen steigt. Frauen sind bereit, auf Ressourcen zu verzichten, um die Kinder in ihrem Haushalt erziehen zu können. Sie ziehen jedoch die Vereinbarung einer Obsorge beider Teile der alleinigen Obsorge vor, um nicht die gesamte Erziehungsverantwortung tragen zu müssen. Eine rechtliche Vertretung führt tendenziell zu höheren Unterhaltszahlungen für Obsorgeberechtigten und Kind. 

In: Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics 2005, Vol. 141(4), 501–525.

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