infonet-economy

Affirmative action is often criticized for causing reverse discrimination and lowering thequalifications of those hired under the policy. However the magnitude of such adverse effectsdepends on whether the best suited candidate is hired absent the policy. Indeed affirmative actionmay compensate for the distortion discrimination imposes on the selection of candidates. Thispaper asks...

Consumers make many decisions in everyday life involving finances, food, and health. It is known from behavioral economics research that people are often driven by short-term gratification, that is, people tend to choose the immediate, albeit smaller reward. But choosing the delayed reward, that is, delaying the gratification, can actually be beneficial. How can we motivate consumers...

Short-term training has recently become the largest active labor market program in Germany regarding the number of participants. Little is known about the effectiveness of different types of short-term training, particularly their long-run effects. This paper estimates the effects of short-term training programs in West Germany starting in the time periods 1980–1992 and 2000–2003 on...

We introduce a general testing procedure inmodels with possible identification failure that has exactasymptotic rejection probability under the null hypothesis. The procedure iswidely applicable and in this paper we apply it to tests of arbitrary linear parameter hypotheses as well as to tests of overidentification in time series models given by unconditional moment conditions. The...

Policy makers around the world seek to encourage generic substitution. In this paper, the importance of prescribing physicians’ imperfect agency is tested using the fact that some Swiss jurisdictions allow physicians to dispense drugs on their own account (physician dispensing, PD) while others disallow it. We estimate a model of physician drug choice with the help of drug claim data...

Recent human imaging and animal studies highlight the importance of frontoamygdala circuitry in the regulation of emotional behavior and its disruption in anxiety-related disorders. Although tracing studies have suggested changes in amygdala-cortical connectivity through the adolescent period in rodents, less is known about the reciprocal connections within this circuitry across...

Humans can resist temptations by exerting willpower, the effortful inhibition of impulses. But willpower can be disrupted by emotions and depleted over time. Luckily, humans can deploy alternative self-control strategies like precommitment, the voluntary restriction of access to temptations. Here, we examined the neural mechanisms of willpower and precommitment using fMRI....