Contributions published at Theory of Economic Policy and Non-Market Economics (Bruno Frey)

This paper analyzes whether hosting the most prestigious European cultural event, the European Capital of Culture, has an impact on regional economic development or the life satisfaction of the local population. Concerning the economic impact, we show that European Capitals are hosted in regions with above average GDP per capita, but do not causally affect the economic development in a significant way. Even a positive impact on GDP per capita would not imply a positive impact on individual utility or social welfare of the regional population. Surprisingly, using difference-in-difference estimations, a negative effect on the well-being of the regional population is found during the event. Since no effect is found before the event, reverse causality and positive anticipation can be ruled out. The negative effect during the event might result from dissatisfaction with the high levels of public expenditure, transport disruptions, general overcrowding or an increase in housing prices.

The UNESCO World Heritage List is designed to protect the global heritage. We show that, with respect to countries and continents, the existing World Heritage List is highly imbalanced. Major econometric determinants of this imbalance are historical GDP, historical population, area in square kilometers of a country, and number of years of high civilization. Surprisingly, economic and political factors, such as membership on the UN Security Council, which should be unrelated to the value of a country’s heritage and therefore should have no impact, are shown to have a systematic impact on the composition of the World Heritage List.

Despite the social importance of awards, they have been largely disregarded by academic research in economics. This paper investigates whether a specific, yet important, award in economics, the John Bates Clark Medal, raises recipients’ subsequent research activity and status compared to a synthetic control group of nonrecipient scholars with similar previous research performance. We find evidence of positive incentive and status effects that raise both productivity and citation levels.

null

null

null

Die Welt erscheint ungerecht: Wer schön ist, hat mehr Erfolg auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und erzielt damit ein höheres Einkommen. Auch auf dem Heiratsmarkt haben es schöne Menschen viel leichter als weniger schöne. Diese Eigenschaften werden neuerdings auch als „erotisches Kapital“ bezeichnet Dieses kommt zu den ökonomischen, kulturellen, humanen und sozialen Kapitalien hinzu, die insgesamt den Erfolg in der Wirtschaft massgeblich bestimmen. Und als ob dies nicht genüge, zeigt die Glücksforschung nun auch noch, dass schöne Menschen auch glücklicher sind.

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.

Ein Zusammenbruch des Euro und sogar der EU wäre nicht das Ende Europas. Die Länder würden sich schnell auf neue Vereinbarungen einigen, je nach Interessenlage. Ein Zusammenschluss Europas unter Verwendung solch flexibler, sich überlappender Verträge auf funktionaler Ebene wäre wünschenswert.

The UNESCO World Heritage List contains the 900 most treasured sites of humanity's culture and landscapes. This List is beneficial where heritage sites are undetected, disregarded by national decision‐makers, not commercially exploitable, and where national financial resources, political control, and technical knowledge for conservation are inadequate. Alternatives such as market and national conservation lists are more beneficial where the cultural and natural sites are already popular, markets work well, and where inclusion in the List does not raise the destruction potential by excessive tourism, and in times of war, or by terrorists.

The artistic labor market is marked by several adversities, such as low wages, above-average unemployment, and constrained underemployment. Nevertheless, it attracts many young people. The number of students exceeds the available jobs by far. A potential explanation for this puzzle is that artistic work might result in exceptionally high job satisfaction, a conjecture that has been mentioned at various times in the literature. We conduct the first direct empirical investigation of artists’ job satisfaction. The analysis is based on panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP). Artists on average are found to be considerably more satisfied with their work than non-artists, a finding that corroborates the conjectures in the literature. Differences in income, working hours, and personality cannot account for the observed difference in job satisfaction. Partially, but not fully, the higher job satisfaction can be attributed to the higher self-employment rate among artists. Suggestive evidence is found that superior “procedural” characteristics of artistic work, such as increased variety and on-the-job learning, contribute to the difference in job satisfaction.

null