This chapter introduces identity utility to the study of (un)employment and (un)happiness. The concept is described in terms of an augmented utility function, the implications of which are assessed in light of the empirical literature on unemployment and well-being. Studies on unemployed...

More than two of every five students who enroll in college fail to graduate within six years. Prior research has identified ineffective study habits as a major barrier to success. We conducted a randomized controlled advertising experiment designed to increase demand for academic support...

We analyze a sample of consumer-electronics products sold by the US NewEgg online-retailer to study the impact of Price Matching Guarantees (PMGs) policies on prices. By applying aDifference-in-Differences approach,we find that prices of the policy-adopting retailer increase by 4.7% during the...

The prudence theory predicts that economic insecurity reduces all consumption expenditures. We question this prediction by estimating the effect of economic insecurity on various expenditure items using an Australian longitudinal data set (HILDA) and panel regressions. Our results confirm that...

A small but significant literature concludes that terrorism impacts the economy, although the impact of mass-shooting has not yet been addressed by economists. We compare the economic effects of two tragedies: the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing and the 2012 Sandy Hook School Shooting. Fatal...

Subjective well-being (SWB) data is increasingly used to perform welfare analyses. In- terpreted as 'experienced utility', SWB has recently been compared to 'decision utility' using specific experiments, most often based on stated preferences. Results point to an overall congruence between these...

Previous studies evaluating the welfare cost of air pollution have not paid much attention to its potential effect on mental health and subjective well-being (SWB). This paper attempts to fill the gap by investigating the impact of air pollution on several key dimensions, including mental health...

This paper presents empirical evidence that racial diversity and immigrant population at the local level tend to be associated with lower life satisfaction for Whites by matching individual data with the county-level population data during the period 2005-2010. The magnitudes I find suggest that...

Immigration is one of the most debated topics in Europe today, yet little is known about the overall effect of its multiple impacts. The analysis suggests natives need not worry. Increasing immigrant population shares have no statistically significant effects on natives’ well-being in 28...

In this paper, we test the conventional wisdom in developing countries of ‘more children, more happiness’ by exploiting the cohort and provincial variations of elderly parents exposed to the one-child policy in China. Using nationally representative survey data from the 2015 China Health and...