Search

The use of herbal or traditional medicines has survived the proliferation of modern medicine. The phenomenon has been labeled as the 'herbal medicines paradox' (HMP). We study whether such HMP hypothesis can be explained by the persistence of attitudes across cultural boundaries. We undertake a secondary analysis of individual-level migration data to test the persistence of the use of herbal medicines in relation to norms in the person's country of birth (or home country). We study the association between attitudes towards herbal medicine treatments of both first (N = 3630) and second-generation (N = 1618) immigrants in 30 European countries, and the average attitudes of their sending country origins. We find robust evidence of an association that is stronger for the second-generation migrants. We document a stronger effect among maternal than paternal lineages, as well as significant heterogeneity based on migrants' country of origin. Our estimates are robust to different sample analysis. Our estimates are consistent with a cultural explanation for the HMP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Ricardo Pagan [sup.1] , Joan Costa-Font [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.10215.37, 0000 0001 2298 7828, Applied Economics Department, University of Malaga, , Plaza de El Ejido s/n, 29071, Malaga, [...], We study how the onset of disability affects both sleep satisfaction and sleep time on workdays and weekends. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 2008-2017, we run fixed-effects models on sleep satisfaction and duration test whether individuals sleep adapts to disability (i.e. their degree of anticipation and adaptation to its onset). We find that people with disabilities report lower sleep satisfaction scores, and shorter sleep time both on workdays (except for males) and weekends compared to people without disabilities. Although we dont find evidence of anticipation effects, we find that sleep outcomes ambiguously worsen with disability. The adaptation to disability in terms of sleep satisfaction is longer for females than males (5 versus 4 years, respectively). These findings suggest that poor sleep among people with disabilities may explain their worst health outcomes, recovery, rehabilitation, and overall quality of life.

Traditional economic interpretations have not been successful in explaining differences in saving rates across countries. One hypothesis is that savings respond to cultural specific social norms. The accepted view in economics so far is that culture does not have any effect on savings. We revisit this evidence using a novel dataset, which allows us to study the saving behavior of up to three generations of immigrants in the United Kingdom. Against the backdrop of existing evidence, we find that cultural preferences are an important explanation for cross-country differences in saving behavior, and their relevance persists up to three generations.