In this paper we test the Rational Expectations hypothesis using longitudinal data on expectations and realizations of individual welfare for East Germans in the years following reunification. German reunification was unexpected and delivered a large shock to the future prospects of the...

The 2004 European Union enlargement resulted in an unprecedented wave of 1.5 million workers relocating from Eastern Europe to the UK. We study how this migrant inflow affected life satisfaction of native residents in England and Wales. Combining the British Household Panel Survey with the Local...

Previous research on unemployment and life satisfaction has focused on the effects of unemployment on individuals but neglected the effects on their partners. In the present study, we used dyadic multilevel models to analyze longitudinal data from 2,973 couples selected from a German...

We discuss and compare five measures of individual well-being, namely income, an objective composite well-being index, a measure of subjective well-being, equivalent income, and a well-being measure based on the von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities of the individuals. After examining the...

The thoughts that an individual has about the future contribute substantially to their life satisfaction in a positive or negative direction. This is a result found via five different methods, some of which control for personality and disposition and the potential endogeneity of thoughts and...

This is the first paper that studies the causal effect of studying economics on subjective well being. Based on a survey among 918 students of economics and other social sciences, we estimate the effects of studying in the different fields on individual life satisfaction. Controling for personal...

Taller individuals typically have occupations with higher social status and higher earnings than shorter individuals. Further, entrepreneurship is associated with high social status in numerous countries; hence, entrepreneurs might be taller than wage workers. Using data from the German...