The literature on subjective well-being has highlighted the negative effects associated with the restrictions and inequality imposed by the hukou system on China's rural population. However, quantifying the cost of holding a rural hukou has generally been problematic, principally for lack of...

The accepted view among psychologists and economists alike is that household income has statistically significant but only small effects on measures of subjective well-being. Income, however, is clearly an imperfect measure of the economic circumstances of households. Using data drawn from the...

This paper estimates the effect of physical violence and property crimes on subjective well-being in Australia. Our methodology improves on previous contributions by (i) controlling for the endogeneity of victimisation and (ii) analysing the heterogeneous effect of victimisation along the whole...

The correct prediction of how alternative states of the world affect our lives is a cornerstone of economics. We study how accurate people are in predicting their future well-being when facing major life events. Based on individual panel data, we compare people's forecast of their life...

People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the labor or on the housing market so that individuals? utility is equalized. However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we...

Neoclassical economic theory rules out systematic errors in consumption choice. According to the basic view, individuals know what they choose. They are able to predict how much utility an activity or a good produces for them now and in the future and they can maximize their utility. This...

The belief that home ownership makes people happy is probably one of the most widespread intuitive theories of happiness. However, whether it is accurate is an open question. Based on individual panel data, we explore whether home buyers systematically overestimate the life satisfaction...

In a simple conceptual framework, we organize a multitude of phenomena related to the (mis)prediction of utility. Consequences in terms of distorted choices and lower wellbeing emerge if people have to trade-off between alternatives that are characterized by attributes satisfying extrinsic...

This paper provides evidence that subjective measures of individual well being can be used to study the impact of income uncertainty from an ex ante point of view. Two different measures of subjective well being are under study: Satisfaction with household income and the income evaluation...

What do social surveys of life cycle experience tell us about the determinants of subjective well-being? First, that the psychologists? setpoint model is wrong. Life events in the nonpecuniary domain, such as marriage, divorce, and physical disability, have a lasting effect on well-being, and do...