Happiness is strongly associated with goal attainment, productivity, mental health and suicidal risk. This paper examines the effect of satisfaction with areas of life on subjective well-being (SWB), the importance of relative perceptions compared to absolute measures in predicting overall life satisfaction, and differences in the domains of life which have the greatest impact on happiness of men and ...
We study the effectiveness, spillovers, and well-being effects of low emission zones in Germany, an emission-intensity-based driving restriction rapidly growing in popularity. Using regression discontinuity and group-time difference-in-differences designs, we show that previous estimates of the policy’s impact on traffic-related air pollution significantly underestimate its effectiveness. We provide ...
The main objective of this project is to analyse how inequalities in old age have developed over time and birth cohorts, to what extent public policies have influenced these trends, and to assess the potential of sociopolitical reforms to reduce such inequalities. This project analyses and compares data and sociopolitical reforms (retirement and longterm care) from North America (Canada), Western...
Air pollution results in high economic costs arising from its negative impacts on human health, especially in urban areas. Driving restriction policies such as low emission zones (LEZs) are designed to improve air quality. Indeed, empirical analyses in this Weekly Report confirm that LEZs reduce traffic-related air pollution. However, the analyses also reveal unintended adverse effects on secondary ...
We provide a concise introduction to a household-panel data infrastructure that provides the international research community with longitudinal data of private households in Germany since 1984: the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We demonstrate the comparative strength of the SOEP data in answering economically-relevant questions by highlighting its diverse and impactful applications throughout ...
Loneliness has traditionally been studied on the individual level. This study is one of the first to systematically describe and explaindifferences in loneliness on a fine-grained regional level. Using data from the nationally representative German Socio-EconomicPanel Study (N ¼17,602), we mapped the regional distribution of loneliness across Germany and examined whether regionaldifferences in loneliness ...
Following the fall of the Iron Curtain it was important for the acceptance of the new economic and political system that the former Communist elites did not maintain their privileges, and that protesters, who helped to overturn the old system, improved their situation. With newly available panel data on East Germany’s socialist past, the German Democratic Republic, we analyze how former Communist elites, ...
People enjoy well-being benefits if their personal characteristics match those of their culture. This person-culture match effect is integral to many psychological theories and—as a driver of migration—carries much societal relevance. But do people differ in the degree to which person-culture match confers well-being benefits? In the first-ever empirical test of that question, we examined whether the ...
Since the labor market reforms around 2005, known as the Hartz reforms, Germany has experienced declining unemployment rates. However, little is known about the reforms’ effect on individual life satisfaction of unemployed workers. This study applies difference-in-difference estimations and finds a decrease in life satisfaction after the reforms that is more pronounced for male unemployed in west Germany. ...