Subjective wellbeing data is becoming increasingly popular in economics research. The wellbeing valuation approach uses wellbeing data instead of data gleaned from preferences to attach monetary values to non-market goods. This method could be an important alternative to preference-based...

We use highly disaggregated firm-level export data from Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Uruguay over the period 2005-2008 to provide a precise characterization of firms' export margins, across products, destination countries, and crucially customers. We show that a firm's number of buyers and the...

We present a static model of aggregate demand and unemployment. The economy has a nonproduced good, a produced good, and labor. Product and labor markets have matching frictions. A general equilibrium is a set of prices, market tightnesses, and quantities such that buyers and sellers optimize...

The aim of this paper is to survey the "hard" evidence on the effects of subjective well-being. In doing so, we complement the evidence on the determinants of well-being by showing that human well-being also affects outcomes of interest such as health, income, and social behaviour. Generally, we...

We disaggregate the self-employed into incorporated and unincorporated to distinguish between "entrepreneurs" and other business owners. The incorporated self-employed have a distinct combination of cognitive, noncognitive, and family traits. Besides coming from higher-income families with...

We study a high profile public policy question on immigration, namely the link between crime and immigration, presenting new evidence from England and Wales in the 2000s. For studying immigration impacts, this period is of considerable interest as the composition of migration altered...

Research on the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) has escalated in recent years. This study contributes to the literature by examining how SWB reports differ by mode of survey administration. Using data from the 2011 Annual Population Survey in the UK, we find that individuals...

This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It makes five main points: 1. Mental health is the biggest single predictor of life-satisfaction. This is so in the UK, Germany and Australia even if mental health is included with a six-year lag. It explains more of the variance...

We find an individual's rank within their reference group has effects on later objective outcomes. To evaluate the impact of local rank, we use a large administrative dataset tracking over two million students in England from primary through to secondary school. Academic rank within primary...

The randomized controlled trial (RCT) has been a heavily utilized research tool in medicine for over 60 years. Since the early 2000's, large-scale RCTs have been used in increasingly large numbers in the social sciences to evaluate questions of both policy and theory. The early economics...