Many politicians believe they can intervene in the economy to improve people’s lives. But can they? In a social experiment carried out in the United Kingdom, extensive in-work support was randomly assigned among 16,000 disadvantaged people. We follow a sub-sample of 3,500 single parents for 5...

The causes of people’s political attitudes are largely unknown. We study this issue by exploiting longitudinal data on lottery winners. Comparing people before and after a lottery windfall, we show that winners tend to switch towards support for a right-wing political party and to become less...

There is a large amount of cross-sectional evidence for a midlife low in the life cycle of human happiness and well-being (a ‘U shape’). Yet no genuinely longitudinal inquiry has uncovered evidence for a U-shaped pattern. Thus some researchers believe the U is a statistical artefact. We...

Objective - Although human aging is characterized by loss of fertility and progressive decline in physical abilities, later life is associated with better psychological health and well-being. Furthermore, there has been an unprecedented increase in average lifespan over the past century without...

The paper studies the theory of optimal intervention in an economy with trade unions. It is shown that the traditional remedy, a flat employment subsidy in the union sector, cannot produce a first-best welfare optimum. But non-linear wage and employment subsidies can generate a full social...

Ce document donne un apercu de debat actuel sur la prise en compte des prix des actifs par la politique monetaire, se concentrant sur l'evolution des cours des actions aux Etats-Unis. Il passe d'abord en revue les principales causes et consequences de cette evolution, puis resume les arguments...

In this paper we draw upon a recent body of evidence, with particular reference to material produced in the context of an ongoing OECD project on growth. We present an international comparison with special attention given to development in trends of labour productivity, allowing for human...

In this paper we consider a range of topics which connect exchange rates to the economic growth process. In particular, we first of all outline the basic properties of exchange rates when they are flexible. One key feature of flexible exchange rates is that they are highly volatile and such...