A fundamental requirement of market economies is the security of ownership claims to property. Yet history is littered with cases of challenges to these claims. A large literature has found contradictory evidence for the effect of income and income inequality on revolt, possibly due to omitted...

We study quot;habituationquot; to income and to status using individual panel data on the happiness of 7,812 people living in Germany from 1984 to 2000. Specifically, we estimate a quot;happiness equationquot; defined over several lags of income and status and compare the long run effects. We...

The answer to the question posed in the title is 'yes.' Using a total of 128,106 answers to a survey question about happiness,' we find that there is a large, negative and significant effect of inequality on happiness in Europe but not in the US. There are two potential explanations. First,...