The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the new field of happiness economics which over the past several decades has substantially enhanced our understanding of cognitive judgment, human behavior, and the nature of happiness. Chapter 1 starts with a discussion of the subjective approach to measuring well-being and lays the foundation for the empirical work that follows in chapters 2 and 3. This approach has a strong appeal because ancient and modern cultures, and a long tradition in philosophy, view achieving happiness as the ultimate goal of human existence. It also recognizes that humans are the best judges of their own condition. In this first chapter, I discuss some common ambiguities related to the term happiness and outline some of the most common ways in which subjective well-being (SWB)data is measured. Next, I discuss how reliable subjective well-being data is and what are some of its strengths and weaknesses in the context of economic research. Some major insights from the growing literature on happiness economics are also provided and alternative approaches to measuring quality of life (and well-being) are suggested in the last section. One puzzle in the happiness economics literature has been that although real incomes have substantially improved over the past 40 years, happiness levels in the United States have stagnated. In chapter 2, I show that the rising level of income inequality in the United States since the 1970s can explain the stagnating happiness levels of Americans. First, using subjective well-being data from the General Social Survey, I estimate the concavity of the utility function within a neo-utilitarian framework of welfare analysis and calculate the Atkinson index of inequality. Although the estimates suggests that Americans have become increasingly more inequality-averse over time, the results suggest that the concavity of the utility function alone cannot explain the happiness patterns observed in the past several decades. Once I account for the negative external cost from economic inequality, however, the empirical analysis implies that economic growth has not been sufficient to compensate for the loss of subjective well-being associated with the rising level of inequality. This is consistent with the findings of several different surveys on subjective well-being. Finally, I evaluate the equality-efficiency trade-off in the US, and discover a small and positive trade-off. Chapter 3 considers another important policy topic in recent years -- the increasing cost of college tuition and the scrutinized value of higher education. Using subjective well-being data, I show that higher education has a large non-monetary (happiness) return that goes beyond the benefit of finding a better paid and more satisfying job. A person with a high school degree, for instance, would have to earn \$41,683 more per year to be equally as happy as somebody with a college degree that has a similar socio-economic background. This large non-monetary return is associated with better marriage, health, and parenting choices, and stronger social networks that translate into higher levels of interpersonal trust. The lion's share of this non-monetary return is earned in college while the majority of the returns from graduate school are associated with higher salary. This return varies among the different subgroups of the population. Women, for example, benefit twice as much from a college education as men, and this non-monetary return has slightly increased over time. This may explain, at least partially, the increase in demand for college education over the past 30 years, and the unprecedented rise in the price of college tuition. It is hypothesized that one way in which education works is to change the attitudes, values, and behavior of students. Higher education, for example, makes students more open-minded, tolerant, and risk-averse. Evidence in support of this hypothesis is found by estimating the coefficient of risk (and inequality) aversion. Finally, using subjective well-being data from the European Value Study, the average non-monetary return from higher education is also calculated for Europeans and compared to that in the United States. Although higher education is also found to have a positive effect on happiness in Europe, the non-monetary returns are much larger in the United States. Furthermore, contrary to the United States, the direct effect of education on happiness in Europe is substantial, while the indirect effect is negligible.

This dissertation studies households' housing decision in the presence of income risks, and its implication on within-cohort income/consumption inequality and the nature of income risks facing households. It is composed of three chapters. The first chapter presents evidence from Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and Consumer Expenditure Survey (PSID) that housing consumption and housing investment are negatively affected by income risks. Within a household portfolio choice model, the negative effect can be attributed to the illiquidity of housing investment and the positive correlation between house price and income. The second chapter provides empirical evidence that the secular rise of income and consumption inequalities in the United States is age-dependent. It is more significant among younger households. With this feature, biasedness arises from the traditional methodology of decomposing inequality into age effect, year effect and cohort effect. A simple but effective remedy for the problem is proposed. The third chapter of the dissertation studies the age-profile of within-cohort income/consumption inequality, using the methodology proposed in the second chapter. It documents the age-profile of housing consumption inequality which is almost flat. This stands in contrast to the well-documented fact that within-cohort nonhousing consumption inequality rises with age, which has been argued to be evidence for persistent, uninsurable income shocks to households. This argument is challenged by the finding that housing consumption inequality has a flat age-profile. Within the framework of standard lifecycle model, the coexistence of rising nonhousing consumption inequality and flat housing consumption inequality constitutes a puzzle. A potential resolution lies in the negative effect of income uncertainty on housing decision which diminishes with age, as shown in the first chapter of the dissertation. / text

Brazil’s Bolsa Família and its impacts on student enrollment and achievement is studied increasingly frequently, but the quality of education received by Bolsa Família recipients is often not factored in. This study uses school data and the Bolsa Família registry to map patterns of school inputs for all Brazilian students, and to discover any patterns in inputs for specifically Bolsa Família recipient students. The availability of all types of school inputs follow similar regional patterns: low quantities of materials and low quality facilities in the North and Northeast regions, and the reverse in the South and Southeast, with the most consistently high averages of all inputs found in the Central-West. High proportions of these students tend to be present in the North and Northeast, affecting their access to school inputs. These students also tended to lack infrastructure and technology inputs, which likely have a mixed impact on student performance. / text

The United Nations Population Fund has identified gender inequality and gender-based violence as two of the main threats to women's reproductive health. In fact, researchers have estimated that between one quarter and one half of all women with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, have abusive partners. Given the pervasiveness and far-reaching effects of these phenomena, it is essential to take steps to mitigate the possible negative consequences on women's reproductive health, including HIV status. This exploratory qualitative research study was designed to gain further insight into the contextual factors and personal experiences of HIV positive African immigrant women, with the goal of informing the development of contextually-tailored HIV risk reduction strategies. This study, guided by a theoretical framework based on Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory and the Theory of Gender and Power, utilized in-depth interviews with six HIV positive African immigrant women. Narrative analysis was used to explore the women's narratives on the role of gender-based violence and inequality on their disease status. The main overarching theme revealed in the women's narratives was that marriage is a vulnerable status that can actually put women at risk for contracting HIV. This vulnerability is based on social norms that state once women are married, they: 1) should not say "No" to sex with their husbands, 2) should not ask their husbands to use a condom, and 3) should not divorce husbands for having concurrent sexual partners. The women's narratives showed how the gender norms and decision-making process they observed in their families of origin, and in the larger community, affect their sexual decision making in their intimate relationships. Their narratives also introduced us to their experiences of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, as well as physical and emotional neglect. Finally, listening to the narratives of HIV positive African immigrant women educated us on the stigma and silence around HIV in their community, in addition to paving the way for recommendations on preventing the spread of HIV in their communities in the United States, as well as abroad. Implications for social work practice and policy, as well as future research are discussed. / text

Are students in the physical sciences/engineering (PS/E) similar, in terms of academic performance and degree persistence, to students majoring in other fields? Previous research tends to focus exclusively on students within STEM; conversely, this dissertation uses a nationally representative sample to examine persistence rates among students whose initial major is in PS/E, life science, business, social science, education, health, or humanities. Students in PS/E majors are sometimes more and sometimes less likely than students in other fields to earn a degree in their initial field of study versus another field. Additionally, students in PS/E are the most academically prepared for college, as measured by high school mathematics and English performance. Despite these high levels of preparation, PS/E students earn lower college grades within their intended field of study than students in other fields. The results show that the gap in college grades, net of background and preparation, explains (in part) why students in business, education, and humanities have higher persistence rates than students in PS/E. Moreover, the association between within-field college grades and persistence is strongest for PS/E students. Taken together, these results demonstrate that students who enter PS/E are indeed unique in terms of academic performance, persistence, and the relationship between the two. Further, among PS/E students, females are more likely than males to earn a degree in fields outside of PS/E compared to within PS/E. Using college transcript data, I investigate the commonly used argument that gender gaps in PS/E persistence can be explained by female underachievement during the college years. Regardless of whether performance is measured using students' PS/E GPA, the proportion of low grades earned, or the difference between PS/E and non-PS/E GPA, there is no evidence that differences in performance explain the gender gap in persistence. This result is not surprising given there is no significant gender gap in PS/E grades. Lastly, I find that the relationship between PS/E GPA and persistence is similar across gender. These results build on the growing body of literature suggesting that gender differences in academic performance are ineffective at explaining gender inequality in PS/E. / text

In recent years, the call for business actors to be part of collaborations addressing sustainable development has become more common. There is a consensus that no single sector alone can solve the environmental problems and poverty conditions challenging humanity. However, it is not clear if these cross-sector collaborations thrive when disasters can strike any time and when some actors are richer than others. Through a series of experiments involving threshold public goods games with stochastic shocks, this dissertation contains three related papers exploring different facets of the persistence of cooperation. The experiments were conducted in Sweden, the Philippines and South Africa, countries with varying disaster risk exposures and income structures. Cooperation in the face of disaster explores the effects of different types of uncertainties on cooperation, particularly when there is a risk for repeated disasters (i.e. losses resulting from inadequate cooperation). The results show that cooperation persists when we do not know when disasters may strike (i.e. timing), as well as when there are uncertainties on what is required to avoid the disaster (i.e. threshold) and which losses will be incurred (i.e. impact). Conditional cooperation and disaster uncertainty explores the mechanism behind the persistence of cooperation, as it investigates if conditionality continues to prevail in the face of disaster. The findings show that conditionality and free-riding attenuates while unconditional cooperation accelerates. Cooperating in an unequal and uncertain world explores what happens when inequality enters the picture. The findings reveal that cooperation remains the same when there is inequality and increases in the presence of uncertainty. The effect of uncertainty is stronger than inequality, with high unconditional cooperation and low freeriding. / <p>Diss. Stockholm :  Stockholm School of Economics, 2015</p>

Each state or region within the United States has certain unique and distinct characteristics that cause its economic performance to vary from that of the nation as a whole. Unemployment rates, as summary measures of unutilized manpower resources, frequently serve as a gauge of the general economic situation and social well-being. It is a well documented fact that unemployment is not evenly distributed througout the nation. For example, although 54% of the labor force is concetrated in the northeast and north central regions, they only account for 46% of the unemployment in recent years. This thesis focuses on the measurement and behavior of unemployed in Indiana, with particular attention devoted to contrasting performance by the State's economy with that of the nation as a whole.

Sociologists have long studied mate choice patterns to understand the shape of stratification systems. Romantic pairing involves intimacy and trust, and is therefore a prime indicator of the extent to which members of different social groupings (race/ethnicity, social class, education, religion) accept each other as social equals. The majority of this literature focuses on marriage, given the commitment marriage implies and the availability of nationally-representative data. In this dissertation, I examine the opposite end of the relationship spectrum: The initial screening and sorting process whereby strangers consider each other as potential mates; express interest in some subset of this population but not others; and find that this interest is or is not reciprocated. This beginning stage in mate choice is particularly important for our understanding of social boundaries because personality factors are likely to matter less and social characteristics to matter more. Yet because these initial forays into relationships are typically unobserved, we know very little about whom people consider as potential mates in the first place. I ask the following questions, corresponding to three empirical chapters: First, how do individuals from different status backgrounds vary in the types of strategies that they pursue and the degree of success that they achieve? Second, what underlying dynamics of homophily, competition, and gender asymmetry give rise to observed patterns of interaction, and under what circumstances do some of these boundaries break down? Third, how do strategies as well as preferences vary at different stages of selection, and at what point is homogeneity created? To answer these questions, I use detailed longitudinal data from a popular online dating site. These data are particularly useful for the study of social inequality not only due to the unique quantity and nature of information that is available, but also because online dating has become one of the primary ways that singles meet and marry today. / Sociology

This dissertation explains how increased educational attainment became the most politically viable means of reducing economic inequality in the postwar United States. Using Houston as a case study, the dissertation argues that a heterogeneous group of people and organizations played a role in the creation of a society in which human capital development served the vital political function of structuring economic inequality: employers who sought to raise worker productivity at minimal direct cost to themselves and to wrest control of worker training from labor unions; ordinary Houstonians in search of economic security and opportunity, including black and Latino civil rights activists who used human capital development to dismantle the racial division of labor; and federal, state, and local government officials who used education to lower unemployment and spur economic development. / History

The purpose of this qualitive content analysis is to examine and analyse how children are visualized in toy catalogs, depending on their gender, 2014 - 2015.   It is important to observe how advertisement maintains the gender stereotypes norms of our society, since it has a major impact on our self-image and identity. Especially when it comes to children, who absorb everything and also because it is during the childhood the socialization process begins.   It is common that toy stores and toy catalogs distinguish boy toys from girl toys, based on the toy’s colour, form and function. This phenomena has become a topic of public discussion in recent years. Therefore, the two large toy companies, BR-leksaker and Toys “R” Us, claim to have published gender neutral toy catalogs by changing the gender roles and letting boys and girls play together with the same toys.   In order to gain more knowledge of toys impact on gender roles, we studied previous research by scientist in the field of gender, e.g. Almqvist, Butler and Connell. By using a qualitative method with a semiotic perspective, we found recurrent underlying aspects in the advertisements, by the selection of twelve pictures. The studies result implies that the studied toy catalogs are not yet equal, although a certain level of progress can be ascertained. Not even the three most equal advertisements visualized girls and boys equally, because of details such as stereotypical hairstyles, accessories and clothing. Furthermore, the study shows that girls are portrayed with boy toys than vice versa, which implies that boys are to a greater extent regarded as abnormal.