Abstract: Vaccine hesitancy has been on the rise throughout the past two decades, especially in high income countries where existing pro-vaccination public health communication strategies have proven ineffective. We argue that appealing to other-regarding preferences is one way of improving the effectiveness of public health communication strategies. To test this argument, we assess how vaccination intentions are influenced by the presence of people who cannot vaccinate, such as the immunosuppressed, newborns or pregnant women, using a laboratory experiment where there is a passive player whose welfare depends on the decisions of other, active players. Results suggest that pro-vaccine messages targeting altruism can increase vaccination intentions by: (i) invoking past experiences of dependence and vulnerability; (ii) stressing cooperation as a social norm; and (iii) emphasizing the presence of vulnerable individuals in a given society.
Abstract: I estimate the causal effect of the default marital property regime type on female labor supply, fertility, marriage, divorce, and household wealth, utilizing the regional variation in the default marital property system in Spain and the 2005 divorce reform. Property rights theory predicts that under contractual incompleteness joint ownership provides the strongest incentives to make relationship-specific investments while non-integration of assets encourages non-specific investments. My findings are consistent with these predictions in a family context. I find that separation of property fosters higher female labor supply and a family model with fewer children, evidenced by higher first-born and lower third-born fertility rates, than community property. Marriage and divorce rates, and household wealth remain largely unaffected by the property regime type.
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that the purpose of a marital contract is to regulate the dissolution of a marriage, instead of governing an ongoing relationship. Using a novel, high-quality dataset of contracts, digitised from Spanish notarial records, and a reform of Catalan civil law that expanded the scope of nuptial contracts, I show that marital contracts are valuable only if they can refer to the breakdown of the marriage.
Abstract: We study the impact of unexpected school restrictions of varying severity (complete, hybrid/remote education, in-person only for select groups of students) on parental labor supply by exploiting county-level variation in COVID-19-related school restrictions in Germany and using a novel, harmonized dataset on COVID-19 mitigation policies. School closures have no effect on most labor market outcomes, except for a moderate reduction in hours worked due to complete school closures. We find limited evidence for a gender gap in working hours, labor income, and employment status. We highlight the widespread use of short-term work as a plausible explanation for our findings.