Psychologists and sociologists usually interpret answers to happiness surveys as cardinal and comparableacross respondents (Kahneman et al. 1999). As a result, these social scientists run OLS regressionson happiness and changes in happiness. Economists, on the other hand, usually only assume...

In this paper we compare the new satisfaction evaluation approach, developed inthe nineties by Oswald ,Clark , Blanchflower and others with the older incomeevaluation (IEQ) approach, developed by Van Praag and Kapteyn in theseventies of the previous century. We find that both approaches yield...

This paper presents the first household-level study to examine the combined impacts of the global food and financial crises on household food security and economic well-being in a developing country. Using longitudinal survey data of 1,800 rural households from 12 districts of Bangladesh over...

Using German panel data, we investigate how well individuals predict their own future life satisfaction. The context is the decade following the 1990 reunification of Germany, which provided a large shock to the future prospects of the inhabitants of the former East Germany. We find that the...

For a sample of 34 countries, this paper examines the impact that relational goods have on trust and, more specifically, trustworthiness; that is the degree of trust placed in others. Relational goods emanate from social interactions, which can be viewed as underpinning the development of social...

This paper uses the nationally representative Albanian Living Standards Measurement Survey from 2005 to investigate the determinants of life satisfaction. In common with much of the existing empirical economics literature that models life satisfaction (or subjective well-being) this paper...

This paper analyzes the relationship between labor status and individual satisfaction in Latin America. Existing evidence for developed countries shows that the self-employed report higher job satisfaction than the employed. The evidence, however, is less conclusive in terms of lifesatisfaction....

The citizens of Madagascar, and especially the capital Antananarivo, display marked support for democracy: adoption of its principles, rejection of authoritarian regimes, etc. The poor populations are no different from the other social groups in this respect. Nevertheless, living in a poor...

This paper analyzes the relationship between labor status and individual satisfaction in Latin America. Existing evidence for developed countries shows that the self-employed report higher job satisfaction than the employed. The evidence, however, is less conclusive in terms of...

En las ultimas décadas, los paises de America Latina experimentaron una reduccion en el numero de hijos promedio por hogar, lo cual no se dio en forma uniforme a lo largo de la distribucion del ingreso. Este trabajo busca cuantificar el impacto distributivo de los cambios en las decisiones de...