Results

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Is it possible to raise national happiness?

We revisit the famous Easterlin paradox by considering that life evaluation scales refer to a changing context, hence they are regularly reinterpreted. We propose a simple model of rescaling based on both retrospective a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

GRAPH-EE: building employer - employee panels from a knowledge graph and company microdata

Linked employer-employee datasets are a hugely powerful tool for researchers and policymakers across the social sciences. However, access to such data is typically highly restricted and the quality of data varies substan...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Economic Education:

Teaching happiness (economics) in your dismal-science courses

The authors of this article discuss ideas for incorporating the study of happiness and other measures of self-reported or subjective well-being (SWB) into undergraduate economics courses. They begin by motivating why eco...Read more...

Journal article

Epidemiologia e Prevenzione:

Promoting health and wellness: a survey on corporate wellness practices in Emilia-Romagna (Northern Italy)

Background: corporate wellness programmes have gained increasing attention as tools for promoting healthy behaviours in the workplace, yet systematic evidence on their diffusion in Italy is limited. Objectives: to descri...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Income and Wealth :

What makes a satisfying life? Prediction and interpretation with machine-learning algorithms

Machine Learning (ML) methods are increasingly being used across a variety of fields and have led to the discovery of intricate relationships between variables. We here apply ML methods to predict and interpret life sati...Read more...

Journal article

Scottish Journal of Political Economy:

Parental time investments and instantaneous well-being in the United States

This study investigates the relationship between maternal education, child-care time, and well-being in the United States, with a particular focus on the role of societal norms. Highly educated mothers spend more time on...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is it possible to raise national happiness?

We revisit the famous Easterlin paradox by considering that life evaluation scales refer to a changing context, hence they are regularly reinterpreted. We propose a simple model of rescaling based on both retrospective a...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Income and Wealth:

Insecurity on the labor market

There is a common feeling that life has become more insecure over time. I here consider this proposition with respect to the labor market. I first discuss how labor-market insecurity might be measured, and then its poten...Read more...

Journal article

World Development:

Take the highway? Paved roads and well-being in Africa

Public Goods aim to improve individual welfare. We investigate the causal consequences of roads on well-being in 24 African countries, instrumenting paved roads by 19th Century hypothetical lines between major ports and ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Workers in finance from lower socio-economic backgrounds don't have equal voice

Employee voice refers to the informal and voluntary sharing of ideas, suggestions, concerns or opinions about work-related matters, with the goal of driving improvement or change. When voice is suppressed or marginalised...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Where does money matter more?

There is much still to learn about the relationship between income and well-being, and in particular how this may depend on the economic and social context. We use Russian data to estimate individual Welfare Functions of...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Measuring absolute income mobility: lessons from North America and Europe

We use linked parent-child administrative data for five countries in North America and Europe, as well as detailed survey data for two more, to investigate methodological challenges in the estimation of absolute income m...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Social restrictions, leisure and well-being

A wide-ranging public debate surrounds how pandemic lockdown measures differentially impacted individuals and which precise mechanisms ? whether financial-, health-, or policy-driven ? predominate in determining these ef...Read more...

Journal article

Research in Labor Economics:

Effort at work and worker well-being

This chapter analyzes detailed 24-hour diary data from the United States to provide evidence on the relationship between workers? effort and well-being while at work. In doing so, we first measure workers? effort in term...Read more...

Journal article

Fiscal Studies:

New approaches to measuring welfare

Economics has traditionally understood 'welfare' (what makes a life go well) as the satisfaction of preference. This conceptualisation of welfare is typically measured using revealed preferences, proxied through income a...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Income and Wealth :

The well-being cost of inflation inequalities

In terms of well-being, how costly is inflation? To answer this question, empirical evaluations have typically studied average inflation rates at the national level, thus disregarding the role of inflation inequalities w...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The well-being cost of inflation inequalities

In terms of well-being, how costly is inflation? To answer this question, empirical evaluations have typically studied average inflation rates at the national level, thus disregarding the role of inflation inequalities w...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What makes a satisfying life? Prediction and interpretation with machine-learning algorithms

Machine Learning (ML) methods are increasingly being used across a variety of fields and have led to the discovery of intricate relationships between variables. We here apply ML methods to predict and interpret life sati...Read more...

Journal article

Social Science and Medicine:

"Better the devil you know": are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?

Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4000 members of the UK and US public to make various choices betw...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economics of the Household:

Do individuals adapt to all types of housing transitions?

This paper provides one of the first tests of adaptation to the complete set of residential transitions. We use long-run SOEP panel data and consider the impact of all housing transitions, whether or not they involve a c...Read more...

Journal article

Perspectives on Psychological Science:

Mental health during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic: a review and recommendations for moving forward

COVID-19 has infected millions of people and upended the lives of most humans on the planet. Researchers from across the psychological sciences have sought to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 in myriad way...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Robust ranking of happiness outcomes: a median regression perspective

Ordered probit and logit models have been frequently used to estimate the mean ranking of happiness outcomes (and other ordinal data) across groups. However, it has been recently highlighted that such ranking may not be ...Read more...

Journal article

British Journal of Industrial Relations:

Introduction to symposium on the impact of employee influence

The three papers contained in this Symposium are the final products of a lengthy and fruitful research Odyssey. In retrospect, uncharacteristic almost to the point of surreal, the new incoming, post-Brexit referendum, Br...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

"Better the devil you know": are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?

Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4,000 members of the public in the UK and the US to make various ...Read more...

Journal article

Scandinavian Journal of Economics:

Living in the shadow of the past: financial profiles and well-being

We consider the link between individual financial profiles over time and well-being, as measured by life satisfaction. In particular, we look at annual self-reported financial worsening and improvement information for mo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Take the highway? Paved roads and well-being in Africa

Public Goods aim to improve individual welfare. We investigate the causal consequences of roads on well-being in 24 African countries, instrumenting paved roads by 19th Century hypothetical lines between major ports and ...Read more...

Journal article

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin:

Inequality and social rank: income increases buy more life satisfaction in more equal countries

How do income and income inequality combine to influence subjective well-being? We examined the relation between income and life satisfaction in different societies, and found large effects of income inequality within a ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Business and Economic Statistics:

Analyzing subjective well-being data with misclassification

We use novel nonparametric techniques to test for the presence of nonclassical measurement error in reported life satisfaction (LS) and study the potential effects from ignoring it. Our dataset comes from Wave 3 of the U...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Covid-19, lockdowns and well-being: evidence from Google Trends

The COVID-19 pandemic and government intervention such as lockdowns may severely affect people's mental health. While lockdowns can help to contain the spread of the virus, they may result in substantial damage to popula...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Early-life correlates of later-life well-being: evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

We here use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) to provide one of the first analyses of the distal (early-life) and proximal (later-life) correlates of older-life subjective well-being. Unusually, we have tw...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Population Economics:

Children, unhappiness and family finances

The common finding of a zero or negative correlation between the presence of children and parental well-being continues to generate research interest. We consider international data, including well over one million obser...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany

We examine the differential effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. We specifically focus on the role of school and day care center closures, which may be regarded ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Covid-19, lockdowns and well-being: evidence from Google trends

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many governments to implement lockdowns. While lockdowns may help to contain the spread of the virus, they may result in substantial damage to population well-being. We use Google Trends dat...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... The long-term effects of financial distress in childhood

Is there a relationship between childhood circumstances and outcomes later in life? Andrew Clark and colleagues consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences for young adults whose families experienced major fina...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Employee wellbeing: the impact on productivity and firm performance

Does having happier staff mean higher productivity and improvements in companies' bottom line? A study of over 1.8 million employees across 73 countries by Christian Krekel, George Ward and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve detects a...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Income and Wealth:

Neighbors' income, public goods, and well-Being

How does neighbors' income affect individual well-being? Our analysis is based on rich U.S. local data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which contains information on where respondents live and their s...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Childhood circumstances and young adulthood outcomes: the role of mothers' financial problems

We here consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences on young adults of growing up with a mother who reported experiencing major financial problems. We use UK data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Employee wellbeing, productivity and firm performance

Does higher employee wellbeing lead to higher productivity, and, ultimately, to tangible benefits to the bottom line of businesses? We survey the evidence and study this question in a meta-analysis of 339 independent res...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The effect of the Brexit referendum result on subjective well-being

We study the effect of the Brexit referendum result on subjective well-being in the United Kingdom. Using a quasi-experimental design, we find that this outcome led to an overall decrease in subjective well-being in the ...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

The asymmetric experience of positive and negative economic growth: global evidence using subjective well-being data

Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in terms of economic growth?We find that measures of subjective well-being are more than twice as sensitive to negative as compared to positive economic growth. We use ...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Income and Wealth:

Four decades of the economics of happiness: where next?

There has been explosive growth in the analysis of subjective well-being in Economics over the past 40 years. This article reviews some of this growth, and suggests a number of domains in which future research may procee...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Unfairness at work: well-being and quits

We here consider the effect of the level of income that individuals consider to be fair for the job they do, which we take as measure of comparison income, on both subjective well-being and objective future job quitting....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Early-life correlates of later-life well-being: evidence from the Wisconsin longitudinal study

We here use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) to provide one of the first analyses of the distal (early-life) and proximal (later-life) correlates of older-life subjective well-being. Unusually, we have tw...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey

A large literature documents the determinants of happiness. But is happiness all that people want from life; and if so, what type of happiness matters to them? Or are they willing to sacrifice happiness (however it is de...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management:

Does the presence of wind turbines have negative externalities for people in their surroundings? Evidence from well-being data

Throughout the world, governments foster the deployment of wind power to mitigate negative externalities of conventional electricity generation, notably CO2 emissions. Wind turbines, however, are not free of externalitie...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Superstar houses and the American mortgage frenzy

Clement Bellet shows how visible wealth inequality fuelled the US mortgage boom that preceded the financial crisis....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The paradox of the Joneses: superstar houses and mortgage frenzy in suburban America

Despite a major upscaling of suburban houses over the last decades, house satisfaction has remained steady in the United States. I show that upward comparison in size can explain this paradox, as top housing size mirrore...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Adaptation to poverty in long-run panel data

We consider the link between poverty and subjective wellbeing and focus in particular on potential adaptation to poverty. We use panel data on almost 54,000 individuals living in Germany from 1985 to 2012 to show, first,...Read more...

Journal article

Psychological Science:

Models of affective decision making: how do feelings predict choice?

Intuitively, how you feel about potential outcomes will determine your decisions. Indeed, an implicit assumption in one of the most influential theories in psychology, prospect theory, is that feelings govern choice. Sur...Read more...

Journal article

Gerontology:

Associations between neighborhood characteristics, well-being and health vary over the life course

Background: Neighborhood characteristics are important determinants of individual health and well-being. For example, characteristics such as noise and pollution affect health directly, while other characteristics affect...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Models of affective decision-making: how do feelings predict choice?

Intuitively, how we feel about potential outcomes will determine our decisions. Indeed, one of the most influential theories in psychology, Prospect Theory, implicitly assumes that feelings govern choice. Surprisingly, h...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Can having internal locus of control insure against negative shocks? Psychological evidence from panel data

We investigate whether the intensity of emotional pain following a negative shock is different across the distribution of a person's locus of control - the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Top incomes and human well-being around the world

The share of income held by the top 1 percent in many countries around the world has been rising persistently over the last 30 years. But we continue to know little about how the rising top income shares affect human wel...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do people seek to maximize their subjective well-being?

In a new survey we ask respondents, after a standard Subjective Well-Being (SWB) question, if they can think of changes in their lives that would improve their SWB score. If the SWB score is just one argument among other...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Early maternal employment and non-cognitive outcomes in early childhood and adolescence: evidence from British birth cohort data

We analyse the relationship between early maternal employment and child emotional and behavioural outcomes in early childhood and adolescence. Using rich data from a cohort of children born in the UK in the early 1990s, ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Consumption smoothing and the welfare cost of uncertainty

How does income uncertainty affect individual well-being? Combining individual-level panel data from rural Ethiopia with high-resolution meteorological data, we estimate that mean-preserving increases in rainfall variabi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey

A large literature documents the correlates and causes of subjective well-being, or happiness. But few studies have investigated whether people choose happiness. Is happiness all that people want from life, or are they w...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Happiness Studies:

Happy talk: mode of administration effects on subjective well-being

There is increasing interest in subjective well-being (SWB) both in academic and policy circles. As a result, considerable research efforts are now being directed at the validity and reliability of SWB measures. This stu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is happiness a predictor of election results?

Is it in politicians? interest to focus policy on subjective well-being (SWB)? Many governments and international organisations have recently begun to measure progress at least partly in terms of the population?s SWB or ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Business cycle blues

People do not psychologically benefit from economic expansions nearly as much as they suffer from recessions, according to research by JanEmmanuel De Neve and colleagues....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Adaptation to poverty in long-run panel data

We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on potential adaptation to poverty. We use panel data on almost 54,000 individuals living in Germany from 1985 to 2012 to show first...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The asymmetric experience of positive and negative economic growth: global evidence using subjective well-being data

Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in terms of economic growth? Using subjective well-being data, we observe an asymmetry in the way positive and negative economic growth is experienced. We find that mea...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Money, well-being and loss aversion: does an income loss have a greater effect on well-being than an equivalent income gain?

Higher income is associated with greater well-being, but do income gains and losses impact on well-being differently? Loss aversion, whereby losses loom larger than gains, is typically examined with relation to decisions...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What predicts a successful life? A life-course model of well-being

If policy-makers care about well-being, they need a recursive model of how adult life-satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. We estimate such...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Molecular genetics and subjective well-being

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a major topic of research across the social sciences. Twin and family studies have found that genetic factors may account for as much as 30-40% of the variance in SWB. Here, we study geneti...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... The long reach of childhood bullying

Does the fear of being bullied in childhood affect people's resilience to adverse life events they may face in adulthood? The author investigates whether the 'scarring' effects are particularly damaging to individuals wh...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The marginal income effect of education on happiness: estimating the direct and indirect effects of compulsory schooling on well-being in Australia

Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall well-being of citizens. However, little is known about the causal pathways through which education shap...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Concentration versus re-matching? Evidence about the locational effects of commuting costs

Using administrative employer-employee data from Germany, I exploit two reductions of tax breaks for commuting in 2003/4 and 2006/7 to estimate commuting costs? effect on the decision to switch job and move house. Standa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans

This paper investigates the effects of local smoking bans on different outcomes using county and time variation over the last 20 years in the US. First, I find no evidence that local smoking bans in bars, restaurants and...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Where the Streets Have a Name: Income Comparisons in the US

This paper analyses how neighbors' income affect agents' well-being using unprecedented data from the BRFSS and the City of Somerville. We conduct a multi-scale approach at the county, ZIP code and street-levels and find...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Resilience to Economic Shocks and the Long Reach of Childhood Bullying

This paper investigates whether people?s ability to withstand and adapt to one of the most important economic shocks ? job loss ? is determined early on in childhood. Using nationally representative longitudinal data tha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Careers of Immigrants

I use a unique linked employer employee panel covering all wage earners in the private sector in Portugal to shed new light on the careers of immigrants. During the first ten years in the country immigrants close one thi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Happy Talk: mode of administration effects on subjective well-being

Research on the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) has escalated in recent years. This study contributes to the literature by examining how SWB reports differ by mode of survey administration. Using data from the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Happiness as a Driver of Risk-Avoiding Behavior

Most governments try to discourage their citizens from taking extreme risks with their health and lives. Yet, for reasons not understood, many people continue to do so. We suggest a new approach to this longstanding ques...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Step towards Valuing Utility the Marginal and Cardinal Way

Income has a direct impact on our utility as well as an indirect impact through the goods, services and life events it allows us to purchase. The indirect effect of income is not properly accounted for in existing resear...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Money and Happiness: Evidence from the Industry Wage Structure

There is a well-established positive correlation between life-satisfaction measures and income in individual level cross-sectional data. This paper attempts to provide some evidence on whether this correlation reflects c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Evolution of the Modern Worker: Attitudes to Work

This paper examines how employees? experiences of, and attitudes towards, work have changed over the last quarter of a century. It assesses the extent to which any developments relate to the economic cycle and to trends ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How Does Innovation Affect Worker Well-being?

We explore the effects of management innovations on worker well-being using private sector linked employer-employee data for Britain. We find management innovations are associated with lower worker well-being and lower j...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Participation in Organisations: Economic Approaches

Under the auspices of the debate about high performance work systems, it has been suggested that the evidence of positive results is disappointing and that one reason is that there has been a lack of theory. This paper a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Employee Voice and Private Sector Workplace Outcomes in Britain, 1980-2004

Non-union direct voice has replaced union representative voice as the primary avenue for employee voice in the British private sector. This paper provides a framework for examining the relationship between employee voice...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Comparing Willingness-to-Pay and Subjective Well-Being in the Context of Non-Market Goods

In order to value non-market goods, economists estimate individuals? willingness to pay (WTP) for these goods using revealed or stated preference methods. We compare these conventional approaches with subjective well-bei...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Individual Employee Voice: Renegotiation and Performance Management in Public Services

Periodically, the `zone of acceptance? within which management may use its authority to direct employees? work needs to be adapted to the changing needs of organisations. This article focuses especially on the non-codifi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do Job Security Guarantees Work?

We investigate the effect of employer job security guarantees on employee perceptions of job security. Using linked employer-employee data from the 1998 British Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we find job security g...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Motivating Employee Owners in ESOP Firms: Human Resource Policies and Company Performance

What enables some employee ownership firms to overcome the free rider problem and motivate employees to improve performance? This study analyzes the role of human resource policies in the performance of employee ownershi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Organizational Climate and Company Productivity: the Role of Employee Affect and Employee Level

Consistent with a growing number of models about affect and behaviour and with a recognition that perception alone provides no impetus for action, it was predicted that associations between company climate and productivi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Union Membership Really Reduce Job Satisfaction?

We investigate the effect of union membership on job satisfaction. Whilst it is common to study the effects of union status on satisfaction treating individual membership as given, in this paper, we account for the endog...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why Do Non-Union Employees Want To Unionise? Evidence from Britain

The introduction of a statutory recognition procedure offers British unions the opportunity to reverse membership decline by organising non-union workers. The aim of this paper is to test theories of individual union joi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Union Effects On Managerial and Employee Perceptions of Employee Relations in Britain

This paper uses matched employer-employee data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to estimate influences on managerial and employee perceptions of the employee relations climate. Both the strength...Read more...