We use the UK Time-Use Survey 2014/15 to analyze how differences in the frequency and intensity of social contacts contribute to the gap in experienced well-being between employed and unemployed persons. We observe that people generally enjoy being with others more than being alone. The...

We use the UK Time-Use Survey 2014/15 to analyze how differences in the frequency and intensity of social contacts contribute to the gap in experienced well-being between employed and unemployed persons. We observe that people generally enjoy being with others more than being alone. The...

This paper analyses subjective economic well-being in several Eastern European countries from 1991 to 1995. Economic well-being explains a significant part of the variation in overall life satisfaction of Eastern Europeans. In an ordered logit model, the determinants of subjective economic...

Expectations and information about the growth of GDP per capita have a large influence on decisions made by private and public economic agents. It will be argued here that GDP (per capita) is far from a robust indicator of social welfare, and that its use as such must be regarded as a serious...

In this paper it is argued that subjective well-being of the individual depends on two types of variables. The first type consists of characteristics of the individual himself, such as age, health, income, etc. The second type of variables consists of the characteristics of the individuals...

Economic disruption in East Germany at the time of unification resulted in a noticeable drop in life satisfaction. By the late 1990s East Germany's life satisfaction had recovered to about its 1990 level, and its shortfall relative to West Germany was slightly less than that before unification....

Do other peoples' incomes reduce the happiness which people in advanced countries experience from any given income? And does this help to explain why in the U.S., Germany and some other advanced countries, happiness has been constant for many decades? The answer to both questions is "Yes". We...

John Stuart Mill claimed that "men do not desire merely to be rich, but richer than other men." Do people desire to be richer than others? Or is it that people desire favorable comparisons to others more generally, and being richer is merely a proxy for this ineffable relativity? We conduct an...

In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the perceived fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a two-period model of individual life-time utility maximization, we predict that persons with higher perceived...

In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the interaction between the perceived and the actual fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a simple model of individual labor-market participation under...