This paper explores the determinants of individual well-being as measured by self-reported levels of satisfaction with income. Making full use of the panel data nature of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for well-being depending on absolute and on relative levels of...

This paper examines the differences in welfare, as measured by per capita expenditure (PCE), between social groups in rural India across the entire welfare distribution. The paper establishes that the disadvantage suffered by two historically disadvantaged groups - Scheduled Castes (SCs) and...

This paper documents an increasing intergenerational income persistence in China since economic reforms were introduced in 1979. The intergenerational income elasticity increases from 0.390 for the 1970–1980 birth cohort to 0.442 for the 1981–1988 birth cohort; this increase is more evident...

We revisit the development of monthly wages in Germany between 2000 and 2017. While wage inequality strongly increased during the first years of this period, it recently returned to its initial level, raising the question what the role of the German minimum wage introduction for this reversal...

Per capita GDP has limited use as a well-being indicator because it does not capture many dimensions that imply a "good life," such as health and equality of opportunity. However, per capita GDP has the virtues of easy interpretation and can be calculated with manageable data requirements....

The hypothesis tested in this paper is whether the increasing inequality in recent years has had a significant impact on well-being among the population in Denmark. After a survey of the literature we use attitude variables from the European Social Survey in a pseudo-panel setting covering the...

It is well known that female age at first marriage positively correlates with male income inequality. The common interpretation of this fact is that marital search takes longer when the pool of potential mates is more unequal. This paper challenges that interpretation with a novel econometric...

Neither market income nor consumption expenditure provides an adequate picture of individual standard of living. It is time which enables and restricts individual activities and is a further brick to a more comprehensive picture of individual well-being. In our study we focus on a prominent part...

This paper presents a simple conceptual framework specifically tailored to measure individual perceptions of wage inequality. Using internationally comparable survey data, the empirical part of the paper documents that there is huge variation in inequality perceptions both across and within...