Using data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values,...

Using data from the long-running German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) from 1984 to 2008, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner’s personality, hours of...

The idea of higher wealth taxes to finance the mounting public debt in the wake of the financial crises is gaining ground in several OECD countries. We evaluate the revenue and distributional effects of a one-time capital levy on personal net wealth that is currently on the German political...

Population surveys around the world face the problem of declining cooperation and participation rates of respondents. Not only can item nonresponse and unit nonresponse impair important outcome measures for inequality research such as total household disposable income; there is also a further...

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere considerably with the...

In a recent paper, Pratt and Zeckhauser (JPE, 1996) discuss the measure of individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction of risks to their lives which should be used for public decisions on risk-reducing projects. They suggest to correct observed WTP for the "dead-anyway" effect, which...

Using panel data from 1985 to 2019, we provide the first comprehensive investigation of the relationship between trade union membership and job satisfaction in Germany. Cross-sectional analyses reveal a negative correlation, while fixed effects estimates indicate an insignificant relationship....