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: Property rights theory predicts that under contractual incompleteness joint ownership provides the strongest incentives to make relationship-specific investments, while separate property fosters non-specific investments. I estimate the impact of the marital property regime type on fertility, female labor supply, wealth, marriage, and divorce by exploiting regional variation in the default regime in Spain and a reform that eliminated mandatory separation before divorce, reducing liquidation costs. I find that a lower degree of integration of marital assets leads to less relationship-specific investment, resulting in smaller family size and higher female labor supply. Marriage and divorce rates and wealth remain unaffected.
Abstract: Are marital contracts written with the purpose of governing a continuing marriage or to manage the consequences of a potential marital breakdown? In this paper, I study this question using a quasi-experimental setting of two reforms of Catalan civil law that extended the scope and enforceability of marital contracts alongside unique municipality-level data on notarized contracts, digitized from Spanish notarial records. I document a sharp and large increase in the number of marital contracts written in response to both reforms. This finding is interpreted as evidence that marital contracts are valuable to couples only if these agreements be written in anticipation of a possible marital breakdown.
Abstract: We study the impact of unexpected school restrictions on parental labor supply by exploiting county-level variation in Covid-19-related school restrictions in Germany and by using a novel, harmonized dataset on Covid-19 mitigation policies. Our findings indicate that limiting education in primary schools did not affect parental labor supply, while secondary education restrictions had a small positive effect on working hours. Investigating the possibility that short-time work offset the potential negative impact of school closures, we find no evidence of its impact on parental labor supply.