This paper is the first to examine the impact of robotization on work meaningfulness and autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which are essential to motivation and well-being at work. Drawing on surveys from workers and industry-specific robotization data across 14 industries in 20 European...

Using survey data from 20 European countries, we construct novel worker-level indices of routine, abstract, social, and physical tasks, which we combine with industry-level robotization exposure. Our conceptual framework builds on the insight that robotization simultaneously replaces, creates,...

We demonstrate why meaningful work, i.e. job-related activities that individuals view as purposeful and worthwhile, matters to labour economists. Building on self-determination theory, which specifies the roles of autonomy, competence, and relatedness as preconditions for motivation, we are the...

Self-determination theory posits that individuals are motivated at work when their inherent psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness are satisfied. Drawing on this theory, this paper presents a new conceptual model explaining how work meaningfulness influences effort at...

We examine the effect of joining the European Union on individual life satisfaction in Bulgaria and Romania in the context of the 2007 EU enlargement. Although EU membership is among the most important events in Bulgaria and Romania's modern histories, there is no evidence on how it affected the...

We explore how involuntary and voluntary exits from self-employment affect life and health satisfaction. To that end, we use rich longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1985 to 2017 and a difference-in-differences estimation. Our findings suggest that while transitioning...

We examine the moderating role of being a supervisor for meaning and autonomy of self-employed and employed workers. We rely on regression analysis applied after entropy balancing based on a nationally representative dataset of over 80,000 individuals in 30 European countries for 2005, 2010, and...

We theoretically and empirically examine how acquiring new skills and increased financial worries influenced entrepreneurship entry and exit intentions during the pandemic. To that end, we analyze primary survey data we collected in the aftermath of the COVID-19's first wave in Russia, which has...

This paper studies the long-term consequences of communism on present-day freedom of expression values in two settings – East Germany and the states linked to the sphere of influence of the former USSR. Exploiting the natural experiment of German separation and later reunification, we show...

What are the broad societal implications of inflation and unemployment? Analyzing a dataset of over 1.9 million individuals from 156 countries via the Gallup World Poll spanning 2005 to 2021, alongside macroeconomic data at the national level, we find that both inflation and unemployment have a...