2002 saw the first large-scale survey of household wealth carried out in Australia since World War I. Conducted as part of the second wave of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (or HILDA) Survey, it covered all main components of asset portfolios and debts. This paper uses...

The accepted view among psychologists and, increasingly, economists 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...

The accepted view among psychologists and economists alike is that economic well-being has a statistically significant but only weak effect on happiness/subjective well-being (SWB). This view is based almost entirely on weak relationships between household income and SWB. But income is clearly...

In this paper we explore the meaning and relevance of community and social capital, working mainly in economics though drawing on other disciplines. Economic studies of community have focussed in one of two main areas, neighbourhood studies and regional economics. We discuss the contributions of...

This paper provides a statistical overview of three new cognitive ability measures collected in wave 12 of the HILDA Survey: (i) Backwards Digit Span; (ii) the Symbol Digits Modalities Test; and (iii) a 25-item version of the National Adult Reading Test. The paper: analyses willingness to...

We investigate the impact of short-term weather and long-term climate on self-reported life satisfaction using panel data. We find robust evidence that day-to-day weather variation impacts life satisfaction by a similar magnitude to acquiring a mild disability. Utilizing two sources of variation...

Very little is known about how the differential treatment of sexual minorities could influence subjective reports of overall well-being. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Data from two large surveys that provide nationally representative samples for two different countries – Australia (the...

Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education imporves the overall well-being of citizens. However, little is known about the casual pathwasy through which education shapes people's subjective well-being (SWB). This paper explores the direct and...

Empirical studies, especially in the US and UK, have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job separation, or dismissal, are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed...

Using newly collected data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this study presents new estimates of the earnings effects of sexual orientation in Australia and offers the first empirical investigation of the labour market trajectories of...