This paper contributes to the literature on subjective well-being (SWB) by taking into account different aspects of life, called domains, such as health, financial situation, job, leisure, housing, and environment. We postulate a two-layer model where individual total SWB depends on the...

In this paper we review five different methods used to determine the welfare effects of policy changes: hedonic price analysis, contingent valuation, conjoint measurement, the Income Evaluation Approach, and the Cantril approach. In the first three approaches, an attempt is made to discover the...

In this paper we attempt to explain individual, ordinally comparable, satisfaction levels. We postulate a simultaneous equation model where general satisfaction is explained by exogenous shock and level variables, and by the values of the satisfactions with respect to six distinct endogenous...

In this paper it is argued that occupational and organizational codes maximize the correspondence between activities and easily observable characteristics at the time of their development. Over time the codes become less relevant, leading to the false impression that the segregation of...

Psychologists and sociologists usually interpret answers to happiness surveys as cardinal and comparableacross respondents (Kahneman et al. 1999). As a result, these social scientists run OLS regressionson happiness and changes in happiness. Economists, on the other hand, usually only assume...

In this paper, I consider the identification of lagged duration dependence in multiple spells without using the assumtion that there are additional regressors orthogonal to the individual effects. The non-parametric identification strategy is applied to the multiple non-employment spells of 2066...

In this paper we argue that authorities aid cooperation by means of direct coordination or the enforcement of re-commitment devices such as contract laws.Credible threats of violence allow this role. In a local interaction model, an authority forms if mutually connected individuals with...

In this paper it is argued that the slowness of the legislative system implies pre-commitment of legislation for at least the period it takes to change a law. A simple model illustrates the benefit of this pre-commitment.<BR><BR>