Are workers in modern economies working "too hard" - would they be better off if an equilibrium with fewer work hours were achieved? We examine changes in life satisfaction of Japanese and Koreans over a period when hours of work were cut exogenously because employers suddenly faced an overtime...

This paper analyzes the impact of job insecurity perceptions on individual well-being. While previous studies on the subject have used the concept of perceived job insecurity rather arbitrarily, the present analysis explicitly takes into account individual perceptions about both the likelihood...

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984-2009, we follow persons from their working life into their retirement years and find that, on average, employed people maintain their life satisfaction upon retirement, while long-term unemployed people report a substantial increase in...

We first confirm previous results with the German Socio-economic Panel, and obtain strong negative effects of comparison income. However, when we split the sample by age, we find quite different results for reference income. The effects on life-satisfaction are positive and significant for those...

Sorting of people on the labor market not only assures the most productive use of valuable skills but also generates individual utility gains if people experience an optimal match between job characteristics and their preferences. Based on individual data on subjective well-being it is possible...

High rates of unemployment entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular job security, in workers' well-being by exploiting sectorspecific institutional differences in...

We study a unique sample of 1,547 nascent entrepreneurs in Germany and analyze which factors are associated with their self-reported satisfaction regarding their start-up. Our study identifies a new facet of procedural utility and offers new insights about the motivations and goals of nascent...

If individuals reveal their preference as consumers, then they are taken seriously. What happens if individuals, as employees, reveal their preferences in working hours? And what happens if there is a misalignment between actual hours worked and preferred hours, the so-called work hours...