This paper explores a wide range of cross-country determinants of life satisfaction exploiting a database of 90,000 observations in 70 countries. We distinguish four groups of aggregate variables as potential determinants of satisfaction: political, economic, institutional, and human development and culture. We use ordered probit to investigate the importance of these variables on individual li...

In this paper we investigate the evolution of the inequality in well-being across di¤erent countries between 1975 and 2000. We treat well-being as a multidimensional concept focusing on three important dimensions of life: standard of living, health and education. Inequality in the three dimensions shows a di¤erent trend between 1975 and 2000. We propose a ‡exible measure of well-being and use t...

Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we examine the link between income and subjective well-being. We find that, for the whole sample of nineteen European countries, although income is positively correlated with both happiness and life satisfaction, reference income exerts a negative effect on individual wellbeing. Thus our results lend support to both the absolute and relative inc...

Inequality Aversion and Risk Attitudes Using self reported measures of life satisfaction and risk attitudes, we empirically test whether there is a relationship between individuals inequality and risk aversion. The empirical analysis uses the German SOEP household panel for the years 1997 to 2007 to conclude that the negative effect of inequality measured by the sample gini coefficient by year ...

This paper employs a multidimensional approach for the measurement of well-being at the top of the distribution using German SOEP micro data. Besides income as traditional indicator for material well-being, we include health as a proxy for nonmaterial quality of life as well as self-reported satisfaction with life as dimensions. We find that one third of the German population is well-off in at ...

This paper analyzes the determinants of life satisfaction in a pooled data set of representative individual survey data from seven East European countries collected during the early phase of economic and political transformation using ordered logit models. Those core sociodemographic and economic variables known to be relevant from studies on the US and West European countries (u-shaped age eff...

Using administrative records from the Social Security Administration this article explores the relationship between surname frequency and lifespan for over 19 million people born in 1910-19 and deceased by 2011—which represent over 80% of the total population born in 191019. People with more frequent surnames had shorter average and median lifespans. Differences in average lifespan between the ...

This paper investigates the impact of perceived job autonomy on job satisfaction. We use the fifth sweep of the National Educational Longitudinal Study (1988-2000), which contains personally reported job satisfaction data for a sample of individuals eight years after the end of compulsory education. After controlling for a wide range of personal and jobrelated variables, perceived job autonomy ...

This study examines income mobility amongst older people in Great Britain and Germany after retirement. The motivation is that older people may be subject to greater income risks in today’s environment of early exits from the labour force, rising longevity and increasing reliance on private pension income. Our results provide evidence that income mobility amongst older people is more pronounced...

Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed? Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap between the Public and Private Sectors Simon Luechinger, Stephan Meier, and Alois Stutzer Abstract: High rates of unemployment entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well‐being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular, job securit...