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Does the choice of well-being measure matter empirically? An illustration with German data

This chapter discusses and compares 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 information requirements of these measures, the chapter illustrates their implementation using data from ...

Health Shocks and Risk Aversion

We empirically assess whether a health shock influences individual risk aversion. We use grip strength data to obtain an objective health shock indicator. In order to account for the non-random nature of our data regression-adjusted matching is employed. Risk preferences are traditionally assumed to be constant. However, we find that a health shock increases individual risk aversion. The finding is ...

Essays in Applied Econometrics and Behavioral Economics (Dissertation)

Socio-Economic Status and Inequalities in Children's IQ and Economic Preferences

This paper explores inequalities in IQ and economic preferences between children from families of high and low socioeconomic status (SES). We document that children from high-SES families are more intelligent, patient, and altruistic as well as less risk seeking. To understand the underlying mechanisms, we propose a framework of how SES, parental investments, as well as maternal IQ and preferences ...

How Does Socio-Economic Status Shape a Child's Personality?

We show that socio-economic status (SES) is a powerful predictor of many facets of a child's personality. The facets of personality we investigate encompass time preferences, risk preferences, and altruism, as well as crystallized and fluid IQ. We measure a family's SES by the mother's and father's average years of education and household income. Our results show that children from ...

Nominal or Real? The Impact of Regional Price Levels on Satisfaction with Life

According to economic theory, real income, i. e., nominal income adjusted for purchasing power, should be the relevant source of life satisfaction. Previous work, however, has studied the impact of inflation-adjusted nominal income and hardly taken into account regional differences in purchasing power. We use novel data to study how regional price levels affect life satisfaction. The data set comprises ...

A Switch from Joint to Individual Taxation is Welfare Improving

In this paper we empirically derive the welfare effects of a shift from joint taxation with full income splitting to a revenue neutral system of individual taxation in Germany. For the empirical welfare evaluation we estimate the preference heterogeneity in the population and use normative welfare concepts proposed in Fleurbaey (2006) to solve the difficulties of comparison between, and aggregation ...

Tinkering With or Tackling Unemployment Compensation?

Unemployment and welfare regimes: measurement, search activity and income distribution

International Evidence on the Impact of Transfers and Taxes on Alternative Poverty Indexes