This paper provides some of the first empirical evidence on the psychological impact of past unemployment. Using eleven waves of the German socio-economic panel (GSOEP) data set, we show, as is now standard, that those currently unemployed have far lower life satisfaction scores than do the...

Part I How can we know who is happy? Conceptual and methodological issues -- Objective happiness / Daniel Kahneman -- Ecological momentary assessment / Arthur A. Stone, Sual S. Shiffman, Marten W. DeVries -- Measurement issues in emotion research / Randy J. Larsen and Barbara L. Fredrickson --...