Current theories on economic growth are stressing the important role of creativity and innovation as a main driver of regional development. Some perspectives, like Richard Florida's "creative class theory", have elected tolerance and diversity as a core concept in explaining differential development between different places, but his assumptions…

This paper tests the impact of various determinants of the preference for two key elements of the European social models: redistribution and trade unions, using individual data from the first round of the European Social Survey. The basic hypothesis is that the main determinant of an individual's support for these elements of the European models…

Using data from the first two rounds of the European Social Survey, we examine the link between income, reference income and life satisfaction across Western Europe. We find that whilst there is a strong positive relationship between income and life satisfaction, reference or comparison income exerts a strong negative influence. Interestingly, our…