Using a unique dataset of German members of parliament with information on total earnings including outside income, this paper analyzes the politicians' wage gap (PWG). After controlling for observable characteristics as well as accounting for selection into politics, we find a positive PWG...

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...

In this study the relation between satisfaction with life and affluent income is analyzed by using cross-sectional and longitudinal data. The data used in this publication were made available by the German Socio Economic Panel Study (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW...

Theory suggests that subjective well-being is affected by income comparisons and adaptation to income. Empirical tests of the effects often rely on self-constructed measures from survey data. This paper shows that results can be highly sensitive to simple parameter changes. Using large-scale...

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income increases. One needs this parameter for cost-benefit analysis, for optimal taxation and for the (Atkinson) measurement of inequality. We estimate this parameter using four large...

Previous research has found that subjective well-being (SWB) is lower for individuals classified as being in poverty. Using panel data for 39,239 individuals living in Germany from 2005-2013, we show that people's SWB is negatively correlated with the state-level poverty ratio while controlling...

Quality of life and satisfaction with life are of particular importance for individuals as well as for society concerning the “demographic change” with now longer retirement periods. This study will contribute to the life satisfaction discussion and quantifies life satisfaction and pattern...

We empirically assess the relationship between cultural assimilation and subjective well-being of immigrants by using the German Socio-Economic Panel, a longitudinal dataset including information on both the economic and non economic conditions of the respondents. We find that the more...

For representative German panel data, we document that voluntary job switching is associated with higher levels of life satisfaction, though only for some time, whereas forced job changes do not affect life satisfaction clearly. Using plant closures as an exogenous trigger of switching to a new...