Abstract We study the relationship between local crime and residents’ charitable donations and explore the mechanisms underlying this relationship. The analysis combines longitudinal postcode-level data on charitable donations made through a UK giving portal with publicly available data on local crime and neighbourhood characteristics. Our main results suggest that an increase in local crime corresponds to a significant rise in the size of unscheduled charitable donations. This pattern is primarily driven by the donation choices of female and gender-unclassified donors. The strength of the relationship between local crime and donation amounts also varies with postcode-specific population characteristics, such as religiosity, age, and mental health.
Abstract We estimate the causal effects of union membership on labour market outcomes for natives and immigrants, exploiting quasi-experimental variation from large increases in Norway’s tax deduction for union dues. Union membership raises earnings and improves employment protection for native workers, while the private returns for non-Western immigrants are substantially smaller and often close to zero. Complementary survey evidence suggests that this gap is not explained by differences in information, preferences, or engagement with unions: immigrants receive similar information when joining, report similar preferences over job amenities, and are more likely than natives to seek union assistance. Instead, the combined administrative and survey evidence is consistent with differences in union-side behaviour. Immigrants report lower satisfaction after contacting unions for support and are more likely to believe that native workers and those with strong local networks receive greater benefits from membership. The impact is most pronounced in concentrated labour markets, indicating that relying on unions to address monopsony-based market failures may unintentionally amplify group inequalities.
Abstract This research shows that secularization accounts for the early fertility decline in France. Why the demographic transition began in France a century before any other country is one of the big questions of history because it challenges traditional explanations and because of data limitations. Using a novel dataset crowdsourced from online genealogies, I comprehensively document the decline and its timing. Then, I document the loss of influence of the Catholic Church and find a strong and robust association with the timing of the transition. Finally, I explore the drivers of secularization and discuss the transition’s impact on economic growth.
Abstract This paper examines paternalistic preferences in two large-scale experiments with participants from the US general population. Participants decide whether to intervene when a stakeholder is about to make a choice misaligned with the stakeholder’s own preferences. Willingness to intervene depends on which intervention is available: only a minority implements a hard intervention, which restricts the stakeholder’s choice set, while a majority implements a soft intervention that provides information without restricting choice. A substantial share of participants does not defer to the stakeholder’s stated preferences when evaluating welfare. Our framework estimates that about half are welfarists and a third libertarian paternalists.
Using confidential Census data, we find that aggressive performance pay practices and productivity growth have combined to increase US inequality. Employees at more productive firms earn higher pay at all earnings levels; similarly, when a firm becomes more productive, pay increases across its workforce. Importantly, however, these pay-productivity relationships strengthen with seniority: within a firm, the pay-productivity elasticity more than doubles from the median-paid worker (0.04) to the top-paid worker (0.10). Moreover, this pay-performance relationship is particularly steep when there is more scope for performance-based pay, suggesting that the use of incentives can spur the growth of inequality following productivity growth.
