Suchergebnisse

There is a large literature showing that unemployment reduces people's well‐being. Yet little is known about the reverse possibility, namely that well‐being itself may influence unemployment propensity. Understanding the potentials of human well‐being in relation to unemployment is important as many developed countries are currently facing high unemployment rates. As well‐being is likely to be endogenous, we use British panel data and implement Lewbel's novel empirical approach for identification. We show that higher well‐being implies a negative causal effect on the probability of being unemployed. The result holds for two very different well‐being measures: life satisfaction and a 12‐item scale of mental health. As such, it provides new empirical evidence on the causal link between well‐being and unemployment propensity. (JEL D03, I31)

AbstractThis article examines the direct effects of retirement on health, as well as its indirect effects, through a mediation analysis. Using Australian panel data, analysis reveals that changes in retirement status and retirement duration imply positive causal effects on self‐assessed health as well as physical health and mental health. Gender plays an important role in shaping these relationships. For women, the positive relationship between retirement duration and health can be attributed to physical activity. In contrast, men appear to enjoy better health when staying retired for longer because they participate more in outdoor activities.

In this paper, we develop a network formation game in order to study how free trade agreements among countries and R&D networks among firms emerge in equilibrium. Prior research showed that free trade agreements discourage the formation of international R&D networks under the assumption that trade tariffs are exogenous. In contrast, we allow for endogenous trade tariffs, and show that free trade agreements promote R&D collaboration between firms. In terms of efficiency, we find that although countries can achieve an outcome that is socially desirable, the number of R&D collaborations between firms is likely to be excessive from a social viewpoint.

AbstractIn this paper, we examine the dynamic relationship between physical and mental health. We ask whether and to what extent mental health affects subsequent physical health, and drawing eight waves of panel data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) Survey, use a dynamic panel estimator with instrumental variables for identification. We find that good past mental health promotes present physical health. We also show that good past physical health predicts good present physical health. Our findings imply that policies and intervention programs should focus on helping individuals with mental health conditions to reduce the risk of negative spillover effects on their physical health.