Topic Well-being

Nearly every fifth person in Germany feels lonely some of the time

Perceived Climate Impacts and Environmental Action

This study explores the responsiveness of climate policy preferences and individual behaviors to variations in beliefs about climate change impacts. Using an information provision experiment embedded within the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we analyze how updated beliefs influence pro-environmental engagement and whether these effects persist over time. By linking experimental data with rich...

Life Events and Life Satisfaction: Estimating Effects of Multiple Life Events in Combined Models

How do life events affect life satisfaction? Previous studies focused on a single event or separate analyses of several events. However, life events are often grouped non-randomly over the lifespan, occur in close succession, and are causally linked, raising the question of how to best analyze them jointly. Here, we used representative German data (SOEP; N = 40,121individuals; n = 41,402 event occurrences) ...

Cognitive Abilities and Economic Preferences: Evidence from Genetic and Behavioral Data

An influential body of economic literature has consistently shown strong associations between cognitive abilities and economic preferences. However, much of this research has overlooked the potential endogeneity of cognitive abilities - an oversight given that these abilities stem from a series of investment decisions influenced by factors likely correlated with economic preferences. To address...

DENeB - Development Economics Seminar Series

The DENeB seminar series gives invited senior researchers the opportunity to present and discuss their current work and is open to everyone interested in ongoing research in development economics. The Development Economics Network Berlin (DENeB) is a network for early career researchers in development economics. The network’s main purpose is to be a platform for knowledge exchange related to...

Life satisfaction has increased in many areas

The Welfare Consequences Of Learning Where One Stands: Evidence from a Large Field Experiment

The seminar will share two connected papers, one newer, and in more need of feedback, than the other. The premise of both is the received wisdom that income rank matters for welfare, in particular life satisfaction. In most discussions, however, income comparisons are limited to the national population and evidence is correlational. In the first paper, we report on an experiment that randomized...

Reversing the Reversal? A Systematic Reassessment and Meta-Analysis of Wellbeing Research

Fierce debate over the feasibility of cardinally measuring utility – or ‘wellbeing’ – with surveys has recently resurfaced. Several prominent papers claimed that when interpreting survey data as strictly ordinal, most of the literature’s results are easily reversed. We systematically assess this claim. To do so, we replicate the universe of wellbeing research published in top economics journals...

Mitigating Adverse Social and Health Impacts of COVID-19 with Applied Arts

In this project, we analyze whether the arts can mitigate negative impacts of social distancing and isolation on mental health and wellbeing, ease the burden of closed day-care and school facilities on families, and preserve attitudes of solidarity and trust. Using the SOEP-CoV questionnaire, we examine whether experience with music enabled individuals and households to handle social isolation and ...

Codevelopment of Life Goals and the Big Five Personality Traits across Adulthood and Old Age

Since the new millennium, research in the field of personality development has focused on the stability and change of basic personality traits. Motivational aspects of personality and their longitudinal association with basic traits have received comparably little attention. In this preregistered study, we applied bivariate latent growth curve model to investigated the codevelopment of nine life goals ...