This paper is dedicated to the empirical exploration of the welfare effect of expectations and progress per se. Using ten waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, a panel household survey rich in subjective variables, the analysis suggests that for a given total stock of...

This article sheds light on the important differences in self-declared happiness across countries of equivalent affluence. It hinges on the different happiness statements of natives and immigrants in a set of European countries to disentangle the influence of objective circumstances versus...

This paper provides unheard direct evidence that comparisons exert a significant effect on subjective well-being. It also evaluates the relative importance of different types of benchmarks. Dynamic comparisons outweigh static ones. Internal benchmarks are more important than external reference...