This paper demonstrates how quality of life can be measured by plain text in a representative survey, the German Socio Economic Panel Study (SOEP). Furthermore, the paper shows that problems that are difficult to monitor, especially problems like the state of the European Union, long-term...

In this paper data from a survey of 1,771 inmates conducted in 31 German prisons provide microeconometric evidence on the relationship between individual anticipated labour market opportunities and the perceived probability of future recidivism. Results show that inmates with poor labour market...

Cognitive and non-cognitive skills are important determinants of labor market outcomes, but are often unobserved. We propose a proxy for these skills derived from item non-response information and a procedure to test its validity. Exploiting a unique data-collection feature of an Australian...

Loss aversion can occur in riskless and risky choices. Yet, there is no evidence whether people who are loss averse in riskless choices are also loss averse in risky choices. We measure individual-level loss aversion in riskless choices in an endowment effect experiment by eliciting both WTA and...

This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers unexpectedly received...

This paper studies ethnic discrimination in Germany's labour market with a correspondence test. To each of 528 advertisements for student internships we send two similar applications, one with a Turkish-sounding and one with a German-sounding name. A German name raises the average probability of...

Recent evidence suggests that self-regulation plays an important role for labor market success. We conducted a randomized natural field experiment embedded in an existing labor market reactivation program to examine the effect of a self-regulation training on long-term unemployed individuals....

We run two field experiments within a large retail chain showing that the effectiveness of performance pay crucially hinges on prior job experience. Introducing sales-based performance pay for district- and later for store-managers, we find negligible average treatment effects. Based on surveys...

We study the impact of financial education on intertemporal choice in adolescence. The educational program was randomly assigned among high-school students and choices were measured using an incentivized experiment. Students who participated in the program make more time-consistent choices; are...

This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of unannounced, public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers...