This paper assesses the long-term subjective well-being and mental health toll of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 in the general Ukrainian population and estimates the monetary differential necessary to compensate victims of the catastrophe. The analysis is based on two nationally representative...

We provide quantitative evidence on the relationship between military spending and innovation in the 19th century. Combining innovation data from world fairs and historical military data across Europe, we show that national military spending is associated with national innovation towards war...

Are public sector jobs better than private sector jobs? To answer this question, this paper investigates observed differences in job satisfaction between public- and private-sector workers and disentangles the effect of worker sorting from the one caused by sector-specific job characteristics. A...

The retirement decision is under researched in developing and emerging countries, despite the topic's close relation to many development issues such as poverty reduction and social security, and despite the fact that population ageing will increasingly challenge the developing world. This paper...

The paper investigates how employees use secondary employment to smooth out consumption shortfalls from non-anticipated wage shocks in their main employment. The identification strategy exploits surprising changes in firms' wage payment and repayment behavior in Ukraine. Based on unique...

This paper investigates the question whether long-term human capital outcomes are affected by the duration of maternity leave, i.e. by the time mothers spend at home with their newborn before returning to work. Employing RD and difference-in-difference approaches, this paper exploits an...

We study the short-to medium-run effects of starting a career on a fixed-term contract on subsequent fertility outcomes. We focus on the career start since we expect that temporary contracts and their inherent economic uncertainty imply a path dependency which might have spill-over effects on...

We provide a novel interpretation of the estimated treatment effects from evaluations of parental leave reforms. Accounting for the counterfactual mode of care is crucial in the analysis of child outcomes and potential mediators. We evaluate a large and generous parental leave extension in...

This paper studies the effects of Covid-19 related daycare and school closures on gender role attitudes toward maternal employment in Germany. We compare women and men with dependent children to those without children one year after the outbreak of the pandemic. Using data on gender role...

This study explores the relationship between women's representation in political power and school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a cross-country dataset in Europe, we document a striking negative relationship between the share of female members in national governments and school...