Timothy Hinks

Fractionalization and well-being: Evidence from a new South African data set

This paper aims to test whether a number of fractionalization variables that capture cultural and economic diversity have any impact on reported life satisfaction as well as happiness. Controlling for standard economic and non-economic variables, we test whether (i) ethno-linguistic, (ii) religious, and (iii) income fractionalization at the cluster level have any impact on well-being. The findings indicate that income fractionalization consistently predicts lower subjective life satisfaction when the individuals household income is controlled for, and that religious fractionalization is correlated with lower life satisfaction. Ethno-linguistic fractionalization though does not correlate with life satisfaction. Extensions of the model include adding interaction terms which indicate that ethno-linguistic fractionalization is important to specific ethno-linguistic groups.

Bribing Behaviour and Sample Selection: Evidence from Post-Socialist countries and Western Europe

Summary We study the individual-level determinants of bribing public officials. Particular attention is paid to the issue of respondents’ non-random selection into contact with public officials, which may result in biased estimates. Data come from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey, covering 30 post-socialist and five Western European countries. The results suggest that the elderly tend to be less likely to bribe public officials, while people with higher income and, especially, low trust in public institutions are more likely to bribe. Several determinants of bribery - ethnic minority status, the degree of urbanisation, social trust - are context specific, i.e. they change signs or are statistically significant according to the geographical region or the type of public official. The results show that not accounting for sample selection effects may produce a bias in estimated coefficients.

Intentions to Return: Evidence from Romanian Migrants

Romania faces an acute population crisis with an aging workforce and an increased number of emigrants particularly from the young, highly educated/skilled population. This paper uses a new cross-sectional data set of Romanian emigrants to find which factors are related to plans to return home permanently. The analysis pays particular attention to differences in expected earnings and skills and training acquired as a migrant. The study finds that higher expected earnings in Romania and investment in Romanian firms are positively correlated with plans to return migrate. Policies that boost productivity and therefore wages as well as policies that improve the business climate could therefore encourage Romanian migrants to return to Romania, moderating the negative consequences of the declining and aging population, and increasing the skill stock of the Romanian labor force.

Life Satisfaction in Malawi

Measuring people’s wellbeing and what influences it is important for the social sciences. Some economists have also become interested in this question, using information on self-reported wellbeing, happiness and life satisfaction. The method that economists use is straightforward and provides researchers with correlations that generally confirm their expectations. It is only in the last decade or so that happiness equations have been estimated for low and middle-income countries with any regularity. This chapter draws on previous work on Malawi and tests whether the likelihood of crime has any impact on life satisfaction. The results confirm many of the broader findings in the wellbeing literature between life satisfaction and household assets, consumption, economic activity, gender and marital status. We also find that happiness decreased as the probability of violent crime increased.

‘CHOOSE TO BE OPTIMISTIC, IT FEELS BETTER?’ EVIDENCE OF OPTIMISM ON EMPLOYMENT UTILITY

Individual’s expected wages exceed predicted market wages. Rational expectations imply the divergence should be zero. If individuals over-estimate the return from their attributes and view the paid-employment return distribution too favourably, then conditional on market wages, subsequent employment utility is likely to be low through disappointment.