Rafael Lalive
Biographic Data
| ID | 807207 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rafael Lalive |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rafael |
| FAMILY NAME | Lalive |
| SIGNATURE | LALIVE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lausanne |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1938-692X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
How culture shapes choices related to fertility and mortality: Causal evidence at the Swiss language border
Results from cultural evolutionary theory often suggest that social learning can lead cultural groups to differ markedly in the same environment. Put differently, cultural evolutionary processes can in principle stabilise behavioural differences between groups, which in turn could lead selection pressures to vary across cultural groups. Separating the effects of culture from other confounds, however, is often a daunting and sometimes intractable …
Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities
Causal inference lies at the core of many scientific endeavours. Yet answering causal questions is challenging, especially when studying culture as a causal force. Against this backdrop, this paper reviews research designs and statistical tools that can be used – together with strong theory and knowledge about the context of study – to identify the causal impact of culture on outcomes of interest. We especially discuss how overlooked strategies i…
Treatment Versus Regime Effects of Carrots and Sticks
Public Employment Service (PES) agencies and caseworkers (CW) often have substantial leeway in the design and implementation of active labor market policies (ALMP) for the unemployed, resulting in variation in the intensity of usage per policy. This paper presents a novel framework in which this variation is included to achieve a comprehensive assessment of different ways in which ALMPs can operate and interact. In addition to treatment effects, …
Saving the world from your couch: The heterogeneous medium-run benefits of Covid-19 lockdowns on air pollution
In Spring 2020, COVID-19 led to an unprecedented halt in public and economic life across the globe. In an otherwise tragic time, this provides a unique natural experiment to investigate the environmental impact of such a (temporary) ‘de-globalization’. Here, we estimate the medium-run impact of a battery of COVID-19 related lockdown measures on air quality across 162 countries, going beyond the existing short-run estimates from a limited number o…
Inference with Arbitrary Clustering
Is Taxing Waste a Waste of Time? Evidence from a Supreme Court Decision
Environmental taxes are often underexploited. This paper analyses the effectiveness of a garbage tax, assessing its effects on multiple outcomes as well as its acceptability. We study how a Supreme Court decision, mandating the Swiss Canton of Vaud to implement a tax on garbage, affects garbage production and beliefs about the tax. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach exploiting that parts of Vaud already implemented a garbage tax before…
The Demand for Social Insurance: Does Culture Matter
Does culture shape the demand for social insurance against risks to health and work? We study this issue across language groups in Switzerland where a language border sharply separates social groups at identical actual levels of publicly provided social insurance. We find substantially stronger support for expansions of social insurance among residents of French, Italian or Romansh-speaking language border municipalities compared with their Germa…
Equilibrium unemployment and the duration of unemployment benefits
How does Parental Leave Affect Fertility and Return to Work? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments
This paper analyzes the effects of changes in the duration of paid, job-protected parental leave on mothers' higher-order fertility and postbirth labor market careers. Identification is based on a major Austrian reform increasing the duration of parental leave from one year to two years for any child born on or after July 1, 1990. We find that mothers who give birth to their first child immediately after the reform have more second children than …
Social Interactions and Schooling Decisions
The aim of this paper is to study whether a child's schooling choices are affected by the schooling choices of other children. Identification is based on a randomized targeted intervention that grants a cash subsidy conditional on school attendance to a subgroup of eligible children within small rural villages in Mexico (PROGRESA). This policy change spills over to ineligible children if social interactions are relevant. Results indicate that the…
Approval of equal rights and gender differences in well-being
The Impact of Active Labour Market Programmes on the Duration of Unemployment in Switzerland
This article evaluates the effects of Swiss active labour market programmes on the job chances of unemployed workers. The main innovation is a comparison of two important dynamic evaluation estimators: the 'matching' estimator and the 'timing-of-events' estimator. We find that both estimators generate different treatment effects. According to the matching estimator temporary subsidised jobs shorten unemployment duration whereas training programme…
Conformists and mavericks: The empirics of frequency-dependent cultural transmission☆
The Role of Social Work Norms in Job Searching and Subjective Well-Being
Social norms are usually neglected in economics, because they are to a large extent enforced through nonmarket interactions and difficult to isolate empirically. In this paper, we offer a direct measure of the social norm to work and we show that this norm has important economic effects. The stronger the norm, the more quickly unemployed people find a new job. This behavior can be explained by utility differences, probably due to social pressure.…
The Demand for Social Insurance: Does Culture Matter
Does culture shape the demand for social insurance against risks to health and work? We study this issue across language groups in Switzerland where a language border sharply separates social groups at identical actual levels of publicly provided social insurance. We find substantially stronger support for expansions of social insurance among residents of French, Italian or Romansh-speaking language border municipalities compared with their Germa…
Approval of equal rights and gender differences in well-being
The Impact of Active Labour Market Programmes on the Duration of Unemployment in Switzerland
This article evaluates the effects of Swiss active labour market programmes on the job chances of unemployed workers. The main innovation is a comparison of two important dynamic evaluation estimators: the 'matching' estimator and the 'timing-of-events' estimator. We find that both estimators generate different treatment effects. According to the matching estimator temporary subsidised jobs shorten unemployment duration whereas training programme…
Is Taxing Waste a Waste of Time? Evidence from a Supreme Court Decision
Environmental taxes are often underexploited. This paper analyses the effectiveness of a garbage tax, assessing its effects on multiple outcomes as well as its acceptability. We study how a Supreme Court decision, mandating the Swiss Canton of Vaud to implement a tax on garbage, affects garbage production and beliefs about the tax. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach exploiting that parts of Vaud already implemented a garbage tax before…
Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities
Causal inference lies at the core of many scientific endeavours. Yet answering causal questions is challenging, especially when studying culture as a causal force. Against this backdrop, this paper reviews research designs and statistical tools that can be used – together with strong theory and knowledge about the context of study – to identify the causal impact of culture on outcomes of interest. We especially discuss how overlooked strategies i…
Equilibrium unemployment and the duration of unemployment benefits
The Role of Social Work Norms in Job Searching and Subjective Well-Being
Social norms are usually neglected in economics, because they are to a large extent enforced through nonmarket interactions and difficult to isolate empirically. In this paper, we offer a direct measure of the social norm to work and we show that this norm has important economic effects. The stronger the norm, the more quickly unemployed people find a new job. This behavior can be explained by utility differences, probably due to social pressure.…
Conformists and mavericks: The empirics of frequency-dependent cultural transmission☆
The Impact of Active Labour Market Programmes on the Duration of Unemployment in Switzerland
This article evaluates the effects of Swiss active labour market programmes on the job chances of unemployed workers. The main innovation is a comparison of two important dynamic evaluation estimators: the 'matching' estimator and the 'timing-of-events' estimator. We find that both estimators generate different treatment effects. According to the matching estimator temporary subsidised jobs shorten unemployment duration whereas training programme…
How does Parental Leave Affect Fertility and Return to Work? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments
This paper analyzes the effects of changes in the duration of paid, job-protected parental leave on mothers' higher-order fertility and postbirth labor market careers. Identification is based on a major Austrian reform increasing the duration of parental leave from one year to two years for any child born on or after July 1, 1990. We find that mothers who give birth to their first child immediately after the reform have more second children than …
Social Interactions and Schooling Decisions
The aim of this paper is to study whether a child's schooling choices are affected by the schooling choices of other children. Identification is based on a randomized targeted intervention that grants a cash subsidy conditional on school attendance to a subgroup of eligible children within small rural villages in Mexico (PROGRESA). This policy change spills over to ineligible children if social interactions are relevant. Results indicate that the…
Approval of equal rights and gender differences in well-being
Equilibrium unemployment and the duration of unemployment benefits
The Demand for Social Insurance: Does Culture Matter
Does culture shape the demand for social insurance against risks to health and work? We study this issue across language groups in Switzerland where a language border sharply separates social groups at identical actual levels of publicly provided social insurance. We find substantially stronger support for expansions of social insurance among residents of French, Italian or Romansh-speaking language border municipalities compared with their Germa…
Is Taxing Waste a Waste of Time? Evidence from a Supreme Court Decision
Environmental taxes are often underexploited. This paper analyses the effectiveness of a garbage tax, assessing its effects on multiple outcomes as well as its acceptability. We study how a Supreme Court decision, mandating the Swiss Canton of Vaud to implement a tax on garbage, affects garbage production and beliefs about the tax. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach exploiting that parts of Vaud already implemented a garbage tax before…
Inference with Arbitrary Clustering
Saving the world from your couch: The heterogeneous medium-run benefits of Covid-19 lockdowns on air pollution
In Spring 2020, COVID-19 led to an unprecedented halt in public and economic life across the globe. In an otherwise tragic time, this provides a unique natural experiment to investigate the environmental impact of such a (temporary) ‘de-globalization’. Here, we estimate the medium-run impact of a battery of COVID-19 related lockdown measures on air quality across 162 countries, going beyond the existing short-run estimates from a limited number o…
Treatment Versus Regime Effects of Carrots and Sticks
Public Employment Service (PES) agencies and caseworkers (CW) often have substantial leeway in the design and implementation of active labor market policies (ALMP) for the unemployed, resulting in variation in the intensity of usage per policy. This paper presents a novel framework in which this variation is included to achieve a comprehensive assessment of different ways in which ALMPs can operate and interact. In addition to treatment effects, …
How culture shapes choices related to fertility and mortality: Causal evidence at the Swiss language border
Results from cultural evolutionary theory often suggest that social learning can lead cultural groups to differ markedly in the same environment. Put differently, cultural evolutionary processes can in principle stabilise behavioural differences between groups, which in turn could lead selection pressures to vary across cultural groups. Separating the effects of culture from other confounds, however, is often a daunting and sometimes intractable …
Identifying culture as cause: Challenges and opportunities
Causal inference lies at the core of many scientific endeavours. Yet answering causal questions is challenging, especially when studying culture as a causal force. Against this backdrop, this paper reviews research designs and statistical tools that can be used – together with strong theory and knowledge about the context of study – to identify the causal impact of culture on outcomes of interest. We especially discuss how overlooked strategies i…
Economics (11 works) · Demographic economics (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Labour economics (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality (4 works) · Social Psychology (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Business (3 works) · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies (3 works)