The educational and labor market returns to preschool attendance in Austria

Preschool attendance is widely recognized as a key ingredient for later socioeconomic success, mothers’ labor market participation, and leveling the playing field for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, the empirical evidence for these claims is still relatively scarce, particularly in Europe. Using data from the 2011 Austrian European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we contribute to this literature by studying the effects of having attended preschool for the adult Austrian population. We find strong and positive effects of preschool attendance on later educational attainment, the probability of working full time, hourly wages, and the probability that the mother is in the labor market. Full time workers at the bottom and the top of the distribution benefit less than those in the middle. Women in particular benefit more in terms of years of schooling and the probability of working full time. Other disadvantaged groups (second generation migrants; people with less educated parents) also often benefit more in terms of education and work.     

Intergenerational transmission of educational attainment in Austria

Up to now, there exist several studies documenting the educational expansion in Austria in the 20th century but only few studies measureing the degree of persistence of educational attainment over generations. Furthermore, for Austria there are no internationally comparable persistence-measures of educational attainment available. This study aims to fill this gap and delivers key-measures for intergenerational persistence of educational attainment. The Austrian Household Survey on Housing Wealth includes information on socioeconomic characteristics of respondents and their parents. The results demonstrate strong persistence in educational attainment in Austria. Using uni- as well as multivariate econometric techniques and a Markovian approach we show that educational persistence decreased over time. Overall, Austria ranks third in terms of intergenerational educational attainment persistence among a number of european countries and the US. Our results therefore allow to question the significance of meritocratic values and equal opportunity for educational advancement in the Austrian society compared to other European countries and the USA.     

Return of the lost letter: Experimental framing does not enhance altruism in an everyday context

Debate surrounds interpretation of prosocial behavior in experimental games. Skeptics of the thesis that evolution produced a propensity for noncontingent altruism speculate that such results reflect the presence of information suggesting reputational consequences, including awareness that one is participating in an experiment. To examine the effects on prosocial behavior of awareness that research is being conducted, return rates were measured on ‘lost’ envelopes, some of which carried the message that they were dropped as part of an investigation. Return rates were not enhanced by such messages, indicating that awareness that one is in an experiment does not increase prosocial behavior.     

A micro-based non-inflationary rate of capacity utilisation as a measure of inflationary pressure: evidence for Austria

We derive a non-inflationary rate of capacity utilisation (NIRCU)—as recently proposed by Köberl and Lein (Can J Econ 44:673–694, 2011)—based on a large Austrian firm-level panel dataset ranging from 1996 to 2011. By conditioning the current capacity utilisation of firms on their current and planned price adjustments, a micro-level NIRCU is defined as the level of capacity utilisation at which there is no need for the firm to adjust its prices. In contrast to other measures of inflationary pressure, this measure (1) is timely available without revisions and (2) does not imply any need for rather arbitrary methods or concepts such as statistical filtering or potential output. In accordance with the results in Köberl and Lein (Can J Econ 44:673–694, 2011), we find that the NIRCU performs well as a driving variable of Austrian inflation in various Phillips Curve estimations. Compared to other inflation driving variables, such as real unit labor cost, the output gap and the unemployment gap, it delivers reasonable parameter estimates which are in line with existing Phillips Curve estimations in the literature.