This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It makes five main points. 1. Mental health is the biggest single predictor of life-satisfaction. This is so in the UK, Germany and Australia even if mental health is included with a six-year lag. It explains more of the variance of life-satisfaction in the population of a country than physical health does, and much more than unemployment ...
Education is a well-known driver of (entrepreneurial) income. The measurement of its influence, however, suffers from endogeneity suspicion. For instance, ability and occupational choice are mentioned as driving both the level of (entrepreneurial) income and of education. Using instrumental variables can provide a way out. However, three questions remain: whether endogeneity is really present, whether ...
This paper focuses on the structural relationship between family building and upward mobility. Typically this relationship is analyzed for women only, while we include men as well. With new patterns of intimate partnerships and non-traditional families, on the one hand, and a changing labor market, on the other hand, new assertions about their connection have emerged. Using SOEP-data, the possible ...
Based on nationally representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) we analyze the intergenerational transmission of economic and social (dis-)advantages in Germany, the United States and Great Britain. We test with the hypotheses that the extent and the determinants of intergenerational income ...