This article aims to establish a link between the unemployment duration and the inter vivos transfers received by the unemployed individuals. We present a model where the transfer shapes the receiver's job search strategy while the donor bases it on the receiver's unemployment duration....

This paper uses repeated cross-section data ISSP data from 1989, 1997 and 2005 to consider movements in job quality. It is first underlined that not having a job when you want one is a major source of low well-being. Second, job values have remained fairly stable over time, although workers seem...

This paper provides new evidence on the linkages between a large array of institutional arrangements (on product, labour and financial markets) and employment performance. Our analysis includes unemployment, inactivity and jobless rates, thus allowing us to control for possible substitution...

The randomized trial literature has helped to renew the field of microeconometric policy evaluation by emphasizing identification issues raised by endogenous program participation. Measurement and attrition issues have perhaps received less attention. This paper analyzes the dramatic impact of...

This article evaluates the effects of intensive counseling schemes that are provided to about 20% of the unemployed since the 2001 French unemployment policy reform (PARE). Several of the schemes are dedicated at improving the quality of assignment of workers to jobs. As a result, it is...

This paper investigates the relationship between the subjective well-being of both the employed and unemployed and regional unemployment rates. While employed men suffer from regional unemployment, unemployed men are significantly less negatively affected. This is consistent with a social-norm...

The social norm of unemployment suggests that aggregate unemployment reduces the well-being of the employed, but has a far smaller effect on the unemployed. We use German panel data to reproduce this standard result, but then suggest that the appropriate distinction may not be between employment...

Although it is now widely-accepted that unemployment is associated with sharply lower levels of individual well-being, relatively little is known about how this effect depends on unemployment duration. Data from three large-scale European panels is used to shed light on this issue; these data...

This paper focusses on the insurance role of religion in buffering the well-being impact of stressful life events, and the ensuing economic and social implications. Using two large-scale European data sets, we show that the religious enjoy higher levels of life satisfaction, and that religion...

The role of money in producing sustained subjective well-being seems to be seriously compromised by social comparisons and habituation. But does that necessarily mean that we would be better off doing something else instead? This paper suggests that the phenomena of comparison and habituation...