Gut die Hälfte der Schweizerinnen und Schweizer bezeichnen sich in Umfragen als glücklich und mehr als ein Drittel sogar als sehr glücklich. In anderen Ländern, etwa in Österreich, Deutschland oder den USA, geben Befragte ein tieferes Glücksniveau an. Aber was ist „Glück“? Was unter „Glück“ verstanden wird, ist sicherlich personen-, kultur- und zeitabhängig. Glück ist ein so schwer fassbares Konzept, dass es wenig Sinn macht, Glück definieren zu wollen. Anstatt zu beschreiben, was Glück ist, erscheint es sinnvoller, die einzelnen Menschen zu fragen, wie glücklich sie sich fühlen. Jede Person kann gut beurteilen, ob sie glücklich oder unglücklich ist.
Happiness research has significantly extended our knowledge about the factors determining individual well-being. Several prominent scholars concluded that governments should engage in maximizing happiness. This approach is based on a technocratic notion that politicians are omniscient benevolent dictators.In contrast, the constitutional approach considers individuals as citizens who, behind the veil of ignorance, choose political rules producing the best possible outcome. Citizens are aware of the Manipulation Principle stating that government tends to distort official happiness indicators in its favour. Citizens therefore demand extensive democratic participation rights allowing them to pursue the kind of happiness they desire.
The paper reconsiders existing estimators for the panel data fixed effects ordered logit model, including one that has not been used in econometric studies before, and studies
the small sample properties of these estimators in a series of Monte Carlo simulations. There are two main findings. First, we show that some of the estimators used in the literature are inconsistent. Second, the new estimator seems to be more immune to small sample bias than other consistent estimators and is easy to implement. The empirical relevance is illustrated in an application to the effect of unemployment on happiness. Choosing the right estimator avoids a bias of up to 30 percent in key parameters.
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is recruited during visual working memory (WM) when relevant information must be maintained in the presence of distracting information. The mechanism by which DLPFC might ensure successful maintenance of the contents of WM is, however, unclear; it might enhance neural maintenance of memory targets or suppress processing of distracters. To adjudicate between these possibilities, we applied time-locked transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during functional MRI, an approach that permits causal assessment of a stimulated brain region's influence on connected brain regions, and evaluated how this influence may change under different task conditions. Participants performed a visual WM task requiring retention of visual stimuli (faces or houses) across a delay during which visual distracters could be present or absent. When distracters were present, they were always from the opposite stimulus category, so that targets and distracters were represented in distinct posterior cortical areas. We then measured whether DLPFC-TMS, administered in the delay at the time point when distracters could appear, would modulate posterior regions representing memory targets or distracters. We found that DLPFC-TMS influenced posterior areas only when distracters were present and, critically, that this influence consisted of increased activity in regions representing the current memory targets. DLPFC-TMS did not affect regions representing current distracters. These results provide a new line of causal evidence for a top-down DLPFC-based control mechanism that promotes successful maintenance of relevant information in WM in the presence of distraction.
How do we make decisions when confronted with several alternatives (e.g., on a supermarket shelf)? Previous work has shown that accumulator models, such as the drift-diffusion model, can provide accurate descriptions of the psychometric data for binary value-based choices, and that the choice process is guided by visual attention. However, the computational processes used to make choices in more complicated situations involving three or more options are unknown. We propose a model of trinary value-based choice that generalizes what is known about binary choice, and test
it using an eye-tracking experiment. We find that the model
provides a quantitatively accurate description of the relationship between choice, reaction time, and visual fixation data using the same parameters that were estimated in previous work on binary choice. Our findings suggest that the brain uses similar computational processes to make binary and trinary choices.
Although animal researchers established the role of testosterone as a social hormone decades ago, the investigation of its causal influence on human social behaviors has only recently begun. Here, we review and discuss recent studies showing the causal effects of testosterone on social interactions in animals and humans, and outline the basic neurobiological mechanisms that might underlie these effects. Based on these recent findings, we argue that the role of testosterone in human social behavior might be best understood in terms of the search for, and maintenance of, social status.
Sovereign debt crises in emerging markets are usually associated with liquidity and banking
crises. The conventional view is that the domestic financial turmoil is the consequence of foreign retaliation, although there is no clear empirical evidence on "classic" default penalties.
This paper emphasizes instead a direct link between sovereign defaults and liquidity crises,
building on two natural assumptions: (i) government bonds represent a source of liquidity
for the domestic private sector; (ii) the government cannot discriminate between domestic
and foreign creditors in the event of default. In this context, external debt emerges even in
the absence of classic penalties and government default is counter cyclical, triggers a liquidity
crunch, and amplifies output volatility. In addition, a financial reform that involves a substitution of government bonds with privately-sourced liquidity instruments could backfire by restricting government's access to foreign credit.
Social tensions impede social cohesion and public goods provision, and can be a driving force for more serious conflicts such as civil wars. Surprisingly, the emergence of social tensions has been studied only rarely in the literature. In the present contribution a game-theoretic model highlights how reputation concerns and the structure of group cleavages matter for the emergence of social tensions. In particular, the respective effects of ethnic fractionalization, polarization and segregation are analyzed. The differences between ethnicity and class, and the role of social mobility are also studied. The predictions of the model can account for recent empirical evidence.
