Results

CEP discussion paper

Is it psychologically dangerous to live in a rich area? Evidence from census-matched micro data on UK suicides

This paper uses micro data on UK suicides to implement a new test of relative-deprivation theory. Research into the potential consequences of relative comparisons had in the past had to rely on subjective data on wellbei...Read more...

Journal article

Japanese Economic Review:

The Joneses in Japan: income comparisons and financial satisfaction

This paper uses relatively large-scale internet survey data from Japan to analyse income comparisons and income satisfaction. In contrast to the vast majority of empirical work in the area of subjective well-being, we ar...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics:

Faster, higher, stronger? and happier? Relative achievement and marginal rank effects

Most prior research on the relationship between relative attainment and subjective wellbeing focuses on relative income. The direction of this relationship may, however, be positive or negative. Defining the target compa...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Gender norms, fairness and relative working hours within households

Using data in the United States, UK and Germany, we show that women whose working hours exceed those of their male partners report lower life satisfaction on average. By contrast, men do not report lower life satisfactio...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

What you don't know. . .can't hurt you? A natural field experiment on relative performance feedback in higher education

This paper studies the effect of providing feedback to college students on their position in the grade distribution by using a natural field experiment. This information was updated every six months during a three-year p...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...

CVER Research Paper

Building apprentices? skills in the workplace: Car Service in Germany, the UK and Spain

This paper analyses how employers in three countries, Germany, the UK and Spain experience and view apprenticeship. The focus is a single occupation ? Vehicle Maintenance and Repair (Car Service) based on case studies an...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics:

When experienced and decision utility concur: the case of income comparisons

While there is now something of a consensus in the economics of happiness literature that income comparisons to others help determine subjective well-being, debate continues over the relative importance of own and refere...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Without my medal on my mind: counterfactual thinking and other determinants of athlete emotions

How achievement makes people feel depends upon counterfactual thoughts about what could have been. One body of evidence for this comes from studies of observer ratings of Olympians' happiness, which suggests that categor...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

All-star or benchwarmer? Relative age, cohort size and career success in the NHL

We analyze the performance outcomes of National Hockey League (NHL) players over 18 seasons (1990-1991 to 2007-2008) as a function of the demographic conditions into which they were born. We have three main findings. Fir...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

The Provision of Relative Performance Feedback Information: An Experimental Analysis of Performance and Happiness

This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individuals? performance and affective response, under both piece-rate and flat-rate incentives. In a laboratory setup, agents perfo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: True PPPs for 141 Countries

I set out a new method for estimating true (Konus) PPPs. Household consumption per head deflated by these PPPs answers the question: by how much must the average expenditure per head of poor country A be increased to ena...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Life satisfaction and relative income: perceptions and evidence

Using a unique dataset we study both the actual and self-perceived relationship between subjective well-being and income comparisons against a wide range of potential comparison groups, enabling us to investigate a broad...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Interim Rank, Risk Taking and Performance in Dynamic Tournaments

Little is known about the effects of revealing information on relative performance during a dynamic tournament. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on risk taking and performance using data on professionals c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does relative income matter? Are the critics right?

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 ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students

We study the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on performance under piece-rate incentives. A natural experiment that took place in a high school offers an unusual opportunity to test this effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

On the Relative Gains to Immigration: A Comparison of the Labour Market Position of Indians in the USA, the UK and India

While most studies of the decision to immigrate focus on the absolute income differences between countries, we argue that relative change in purchasing power or status, as captured by an individual?s ranking in the wage ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Relative Wage Variation and Industry Location

Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is corre...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Cross-Generation Correlations of Union Status For Young People in Britain

In this paper we investigate whether young people whose fathers are union members are themselves more likely to join a union. The work builds upon a large social science literature on intergenerational mobility that, to ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Simple Model of the Transformational Recession Under a Limited Mobility Constraint

This paper considers the impact on sectoral outputs and employments of rapid and large changes in relative prices, such as those which occurred in transition economies during the 1990s. A simple general equilibrium model...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Working on the Chain Gang? An Examination of Rising Effort Levels in Europe in the 1990s

This paper presents evidence that, across many European countries, the 1990s have witnessed an intensification of labour effort, and investigates explanations for this process. Using data drawn from The European Survey o...Read more...