If policy-makers care about well-being, they need a recursive model of how adult life-satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. We estimate such a model using the British Cohort Study (1970). The most powerful childhood...

Is it in politicians' interest to focus policy on subjective well-being (SWB)? Many governments and international organisations have recently begun to measure progress at least partly in terms of the population's SWB or "happiness". This paper investigates the extent to which citizens themselves...

In spite of the great U-turn that saw income inequality rise in Western countries in the 1980s, happiness inequality has fallen in countries that have experienced income growth (but not in those that did not). Modern growth has reduced the share of both the "very unhappy" and the "perfectly...

This paper analyses how neighbors' income affect agents' well-being using unprecedented data from the BRFSS and the City of Somerville. We conduct a multi-scale approach at the county, ZIP code and street-levels and find that the association between well-being and neighbors' income follows an...

The rise in European unemployment is often blamed on increased mismatch between labour supply and demand- either by age, skill or region. To investigate this, we first develop models to explain differences in unemployment rates - both where labour supply is given and where it responds through...

This paper traces (a) the impact of credit expansion on inflation and (b) the impact of inflation on the real liquidity of households and enterprises. From April 1992 to September 1993 households paid an inflation tax equal to 13.3% of GDP and received almost no new credits. Enterprises received...

Russia has come near to hyper-inflation and pulled back from the brink. But the position is still delicate. In this paper we review the past history, and then what needs to be done and the difficulties of doing it. Russian monetary policy since the reform has gone through three phases - first...

Poland has tackled its economic problems with courage and, thus far, success. Hyperinflation has ceased, the well-chosen exchange rate has held, and wage behaviour has been responsible. A major recession is under way, and it must not become endemic. A big export effort is needed, followed with...

According to Paul Krugman, "the European unemployment problem and the US inequality problem are two sides of the same coin". In other words, both continents have had the same shift in demand towards skill; in the US relative wages have adjusted and in Europe not. The implication of this...

The Western media often depict the average Russian as starving and destitute. This is of course absurd. But hardship has increased since the reform for a substantial portion of the population. Average living standards have fallen and inequality has increased. How much? We begin by documenting...