Results of life satisfaction regressions for more than 91,000 individuals are used to investigate how the macroeconomic crisis of 2008-2009 has affected subjective well-being (SWB) in 30 OECD countries. In a number of countries, the effect of the crisis on a representative person’s SWB is of a...

Drawing on the distinction between envy and signaling effects in income comparison, this paper uses 307,465 observations for subjective well-being and its covariates from Germany, 1990-2009, to study whether the nature of income comparison has changed in the process of economic development, and...

We develop and test a model of social comparison in which individuals gain status through pro-social behavior (competitive altruism) and in which they endogenously choose the reference group and associated reference standard involved in signaling status (reference group selection). In our...

We use data on the subjective well-being (SWB) of more than 91,000 individuals in 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to assess the well-being effects of unemployment, inflation and national income growth. The relationships found are used to...

Using subjective well-being data for more than 91,000 individuals in 30 OECD countries, 1990-2008, we study how people’s implicit aversion towards inflation varies with income and other socio-economic characteristics. While inflation aversion decreases with income, it increases with the...

Large-scale social surveys typically elicit levels of happiness and/or life satisfaction. This paper studies how such reports of happiness and life satisfaction are related to measures of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Major findings are the following: (1) PA and NA levels...

This paper studies whether pro-environmental consumption choices are consistent with utility maximization and what role the consumption behavior of reference persons and one’s own past behavior play in this context. By combining data on individuals’ pro-environmental consumption from a...

We use survey data for 139,517 individuals in 26 European Countries, 2002-2011, to estimate the relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and production shares of various types of electricity generation. The estimated relationships are taken to represent preference relationships over...

In diesem Aufsatz wird der ökonometrisch geschätzte Beitrag von Preisniveaustabilität, Beschäftigung und Wachstum zum subjektiven Wohlergehen (Well-Being) verwendet, um einen Erfolgsindex für die makroökonomische Performanz der EU12-Länder im Zeitraum 1990-2009 zu ermitteln. Durch einen...