We use four ways of the European Social Survey, covering 2000 to 2008, to analyze the effect of religion on happiness. Our findings confirm that religious individuals are generally happier than non-religious ones. When we seek to disentangle the effects of belonging to an organized religion from...

In 1993, Czechoslovakia experienced a two-step break-up. On January 1, the country disintegrated as a political union, while preserving an economic and monetary union. Then, the Czech-Slovak monetary union collapsed on February 8. This paper analyzes the economic background of the two break-ups...

The gravity model of trade is utilized to assess the impact of disintegration on trade. The analysis is based on three recent disintegration episodes involving the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The results point to a very strong home bias around the time of disintegration,...

We estimate the fiscal multiplier associated with shocks to government spending. We consider increases in government spending in the U.S. states in the wake of natural disasters to capture spending shocks that are both unexpected and unrelated to the preceding state of the economy. We find that...

While much research on China has focused on rural to urban migration and transitions of rural households away from agriculture, little is known about the changes within the rural agricultural sector. Yet, the agricultural sector continues to account for a large share of employment. We study the...