Recent studies focused on testing the Easterlin hypothesis (happiness and national income correlate in the cross-section but not over time) on a global level. We make a case for testing the Easterlin hypothesis at the country level where individual panel data allow exploiting important...

We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on potential adaptation to poverty. We use panel data on almost 45,800 individuals living in Germany from 1992 to 2011 to show first that life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity of...

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...

We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on the role of time. We use panel data on 49,000 individuals living in Germany from 1992 to 2012 to uncover three empirical relationships. First, life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity...