After the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, former party members were particularly likely to start businesses and become entrepreneurs. What remains unclear, however, is whether ...this entrepreneurial activity was driven by the resources, information, and opportunities provided by former party membership or because individuals with specific individual attributes were more likely to become Communist cadres (self-selection). This study is the first to separate the causal effect of former Communist party membership from self-selection. Using individual-level Life in Transition-III survey data and a control function approach, we find that former Communist party membership has facilitated business set-up but not business longevity in Central and Eastern European countries. We also show that people who joined the former ruling party had fewer of the traits associated with entrepreneurship such as unobservable personality traits, ability, motivation, and entrepreneurial aptitude, and as such were negatively self-selected. We show that former Communist party membership still matters for business practices, business ethics, and the nature of doing business in transition economies.
Life evaluations and emotional states are distinct subjective well-being (SWB) components. We explore the relationship between opportunities and SWB dimensions, distinguishing between actual ...capabilities and means (education, employment, and income) and perceived opportunities (autonomy and health perceptions and belief in hard work). We find a link between capabilities and SWB (particularly, life evaluations), which varies across world regions. Capabilities can be associated with stress and anger; and seem to matter the least for the happiest respondents. We also explore the determinants of the least studied well-being dimension: eudaimonia, or life purpose, which is an underlying objective of the development process.
We explore how involuntary and voluntary exits from self-employment affect life and health satisfaction. To that end, we use rich longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1985 to ...2017 and a difference-in-differences estimator. We find that while transitioning from self-employment to salaried employment brings small improvements in health and life satisfaction, the negative psychological costs of business failure (i.e., switching from self-employment to unemployment) are substantial and exceed the costs of involuntarily losing a salaried job. Meanwhile, leaving self-employment has no consequences for self-reported physical health and behaviors such as smoking and drinking, implying that the costs of losing self-employment are mainly psychological. Moreover, former business owners fail to adapt to an involuntary self-employment exit even 2 or more years after this traumatic event. Our findings imply that policies encouraging entrepreneurship should also carefully consider the nonmonetary implications of business failure.
Relying on theoretical insights from the Job Demand-Control model, which links occupational characteristics to health, this paper provides the first causal evidence of the physical and mental health ...consequences of self-employment. I utilize German longitudinal data for the period 2002–2014 and difference-in-differences estimations to study switches from unemployment to self-employment (necessity entrepreneurship) and transitions from regular- to self-employment (opportunity entrepreneurship). I find that necessity entrepreneurs experience improvements in their mental but not physical health, while opportunity entrepreneurship leads to both physical and mental health gains. Importantly, the health improvements cannot be explained by changes in income or working conditions and are not driven by personality and risk preferences or the local unemployment conditions. As such, the findings highlight an additional non-monetary benefit of self-employment and have implications for entrepreneurship theory and practice, current and would-be entrepreneurs, as well as policy-makers.
We offer the first global perspective on the well-being consequences of emigration for those staying behind using several subjective well-being measures (evaluations of best possible life, positive ...affect, stress, and depression). Using the Gallup World Poll data for 114 countries during 2009–2011, we find that having family members abroad is associated with greater evaluative well-being and positive affect, and receiving remittances is linked with further increases in evaluative well-being, especially in poorer contexts—both across and within countries. We also document that having household members abroad is linked with increased stress and depression, which are not offset by remittances. The out-migration of family members appears less traumatic in countries where migration is more common, indicating that people in such contexts might be able to cope better with separation. Overall, subjective well-being measures, which reflect both material and non-material aspects of life, furnish additional insights and a wellrounded picture of the consequences of emigration on migrant family members staying behind relative to standard outcomes employed in the literature, such as the leftbehind’s consumption, income, or labor market outcomes.
We are the first to examine how parental unemployment experienced during early-, mid- and late-childhood affects adult life satisfaction. Using German household panel data, we find that parental ...unemployment induced by plant closures and experienced during early (0–5 years) and late (11–15 years) childhood leads to lower life satisfaction at ages 18–31. Nevertheless, parental unemployment can also have a positive effect depending on the age and gender of the child. Our results are robust even after controlling for local unemployment, individual and family characteristics, parental job loss expectations, financial resources, and parents’ working time when growing up. These findings imply that the adverse effects associated with parental unemployment experienced at a young age tend to last well into young adulthood and are more nuanced than previously thought.
Vaccination against the SARS‐Cov‐2 virus is an effective way to protect against the disease and the severe course of COVID‐19. Forty‐nine fully vaccinated with mRNA vaccines (BNT162b2 or mRNA‐1273) ...SARS‐CoV‐2 infection‐naïve volunteers aged 33–89 were enrolled in the study. Evaluation of the cellular and humoral immune response was performed within 1 to 3 months (T1) and 6–9 months (T2) after the second injection, and within 2–3 months (T3) after a booster dose. Additionally, a comparative analysis of the specific immune status was made between two age groups—below 60 (n = 22) and over 60 (n = 27) years. SARS‐CoV‐2‐specific T‐cell response was evaluated by IFN‐γ‐producing spot forming cells (SFCs) using a standardized ELISPOT assay. Virus neutralizing antibodies (VNA) against SARS‐CoV‐2 were measured by a blocking ELISA test and spike protein specific IgG (S‐IgG) and IgA (S‐IgA) antibodies—by semiquantitative ELISA. IFN‐γ‐producing SFCs, S‐IgG, S‐IgA and VNA significantly decreased 6–9 months after the second dose. After the third injection S‐IgG and S‐IgA markedly increased compared to T2 and reached the levels at T1. Of note, the highest values of VNA were observed at T3. No differences in the tested immune parameters were found between the two age groups. Data obtained showed that for a long period—6–9 months after a full course of immunization with mRNA vaccine, immune reactivity is present, but both cellular and humoral immune responses gradually decrease. The administration of a third dose mainly restores the specific humoral immune response against the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus.
Tobacco (
L.) aroma is an important attribute of tobacco quality and is influenced by a variety of minor chemical components, including carotenoid degradation products. The objectives of this work ...were to determine the content of the most important fragrance-shaping carotenoid degradation products in the essential oils (EOs) of the three types of Bulgarian tobacco-Oriental (OR), flue-cured Virginia (FCV), and Burley (BU)-and to compare them with other aromatic products from tobacco. The content of total carotenoids and β-carotene was highest in BU tobacco (22.23 and 20.34 mg/100 g DW, respectively), followed by OR (13.60 and 12.09 mg/100 g DW in variety "Plovdiv 7" (Pd7); 6.27 and 5.45 mg/100 g DW in "Krumovgrad" (Kr), and FCV (5.93 and 3.73 mg/100 g DW). EOs were obtained by hydrodistillation in an acidified medium, and the main aroma-impact compounds from carotenoid degradation (identified by GC-MS) were as follows: FCV-α-ionone (0.61 mg/100 g DW), dihydro-β-ionone (0.96 mg/100 g DW), β-damascenone (1.26 mg/100 g DW); BU-α-ionone (0.73 mg/100 g DW), dihydro-β-ionone (1.19 mg/100 g DW), β-damascenone (1.35 mg/100 g DW); OR(Kr)-α-ionone (0.20 mg/100 g DW), β-ionone (1.08 mg/100 g DW), dihydro-β-ionone (1.34 mg/100 g DW), β-damascenone (0.36 mg/100 g DW); OR(Pd7)-α-ionone (1.43 mg/100 g DW), dihydro-β-ionone (1.73 mg/100 g DW), β-damascenone (1.23 mg/100 g DW). Ionone and its derivatives were not identified in the aroma extraction products concrete, resinoid, or absolute. The results suggest that temperature, pH of the medium, process duration, and possibly other unknown factors affect carotenoid transformation. The study provides insight into the composition of tobacco EOs and may be of interest to the fragrance industry.
The existing literature presents conflicting findings regarding the relationship between inequality and potential emigration. This paper utilizes individual-level data from the Gallup World Poll and ...country-level income inequality measures for 150 countries to contribute new evidence. The findings indicate that increasing inequality is linked to decreased desires and plans for emigration, a consistent global trend observed across various inequality measures and specifications. Notably, this association is more pronounced for women, individuals without overseas networks, and those lacking financial and human capital. Additionally, the study sheds light on how the level of economic development in countries influences the relationship. In low- and middle-income countries, rising inequality is negatively associated with emigration intentions. Conversely, in affluent nations, heightened inequality stimulates greater desires to emigrate, particularly among high-income and highly educated individuals. These insights provide a deeper understanding of how inequality shapes emigration in diverse world regions and across different cohorts, bridging gaps between previous divergent findings.
Along with political and economic changes, the fall of the socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union brought about fundamental institutional reforms. Several studies ...have examined the causes of the increasing unhappiness that accompanied the transition process, including deteriorating public goods, rising inequality, income volatility, stagnating labor market conditions and changing norms. However, few papers have sought explanations for the life satisfaction differentials between transition and non-transition economies. In this paper, I specifically examine the life satisfaction gap between post-socialist and advanced countries and the role of political institutions for explaining this gap. My results imply that both macro-economic factors and the rule of law explain the overall life satisfaction differential between the advanced and transition societies. The rule of law played an additional role in reducing the happiness gap in the 1990s and may have even reversed it in the post-crisis years. As institutions and macro-economic conditions continue to improve, post-socialist countries may complete their transformation processes and achieve quality-of-life levels comparable with those in the West.
•We study the unhappiness gap between post-socialist and advanced countries.•The conditional happiness gap has been declining since the 1990s.•Macroeconomic factors and the rule of law explain the happiness differential.•The rule of law had an additional role of reducing the happiness gap in the 1990s.
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