Recent studies focused on testing the Easterlin hypothesis (happiness and national income correlate in the cross-section but not over time) on a global level. We make a case for testing the Easterlin hypothesis at the country level where individual panel data allow exploiting important...

We estimate the effect of changes in the body mass index on wages and satisfaction in a panel of German employees. Dynamic models indicate that satisfaction with life in general and with health are responsive to weight changes, but wages and satisfaction with work are not. These results mainly...

Subjective well-being (SWB) is generally argued to rise with relative income. However, direct evidence is scarce on whether and how intensively individuals undertake income comparisons, to whom they relate, and what they perceive their relative income to be. In this paper, novel data with direct...

We investigate the determinants of a household's decision on whether to invest in risky financial assets. Financial theory suggests that with increasing labor income risk, the reluctance of households to hold stocks increases. We propose to measure income risk as the observed variation of...

Recent immigrants tend to locate in ethnic enclaves within metropolitan areas. The economic consequence of living in such enclaves is still an unresolved issue. We use an immigrant policy initiative in Sweden, when government authorities distributed refugee immigrants across locales in a way...

In most countries the number of places at the universities is restricted. This paper estimates the effect of university enrollment constraints in 1982 on years of education and earnings in Sweden 1981-96. The effect on educational attainment is related to labor market performance, to estimate...

We examine whether income and unemployment risks are compensated by individual wages. Using a portfolio approach we show that the marginal income risk effect on wages is always positive whereas the marginal unemployment risk effect crucially depends on the income risk. The interaction effect...

Löhne und gesetzliche Rentenansprüche sind über das Sozialversicherungssystem direkt miteinander verbunden. In dieser Dissertationsschrift werden zunächst Lohnrisiken analysiert, um dann das Altersarmutsrisiko in Deutschland aufzuzeigen. Nach einer Einführung werden in Kapitel 2 die...