Well-being Inequality and Reference Groups: An Agenda for New Research

In this paper it is argued that subjective well-being of the individual depends on two types of variables. The first type consists of characteristics of the individual himself, such as age, health, income, etc. The second type of variables consists of the characteristics of the individuals belonging to his reference group. The vast literature about happiness, quality of life, and well-being informs us extensively about the effects of objective variables. How the second type affects well-being is much less investigated. It is argued that the concept of well-being inequality cannot be properly defined without taking the referencing process into account. The reference effect depends on how frequently individuals compare with others and on the degree of social transparency in society. We attempt to give a structural embedding of the idea of reference groups in SWB-models. In this paper we employ the reference-extended model for incorporating in happiness studies the concept of inequality in happiness or SWB. Finally, we plead for an extension of the present happiness paradigm by setting up a new additional agenda for empirical research in order to get quantified knowledge about the referencing process. As a first step we suggest a new question module to be included in new survey questionnaires.subjective well-being, happiness, inequality, reference group

Who values the status of the entrepreneur?

Parker and Van Praag (2009) showed, based on theory, that the group status of the profession ‘entrepreneurship’ shapes people’s occupational preferences and thus their choice behavior. The current study focuses on the determinants and consequences of the group status of a profession, entrepreneurship in particular. If the group status of entrepreneurship is related to individual choice behavior, it is policy relevant to better understand this relationship and the determinants of the status of the entrepreneur. For reasons outlined in the introduction, this study focuses on (800) students in the Netherlands. We find that the status of occupations is mostly determined by the required level of education, the income level to be expected and respect. Furthermore, our results imply that entrepreneurship is associated with hard work, high incomes, but little power and education. Moreover, we find evidence that individual characteristics, such as entrepreneurship experience, vary systematically with the perceived status of occupations, thereby contributing ammunition to a fundamental discussion in the literature. Finally, we find a strong association between the perceived status of the entrepreneur and the estimated likelihood and willingness to become an entrepreneur

Income Satisfaction Inequality and Its Causes

In this paper, the concept of Income Satisfaction Inequality is operationalized on the basis of individual responses to an Income Satisfaction question posed in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Income satisfaction is the subjective analogue of the objective income concept and includes objective income inequality as a special case. The paper introduces a method to decompose Income Satisfaction Inequality according to the contributions from variables such as income, education, and the number of children. Given the panel structure of the data, inequality may be attributed partly to permanent individual circumstances and partly to transitory changes. The paper shows that by far the largest part of the satisfaction inequality has to be ascribed to unobserved heterogeneity. Distinguishing between a structural and an unexplained part of inequality we find that income explains the largest part of structural Income Satisfaction Inequality together with household membership; for non-working individuals, the age distribution is very relevant as well.Equivalent Income, Financial Satisfaction, Income Satisfaction, Income Inequality, Variance Decomposition.

The Subjective Costs of Health Losses Due to Chronic Diseases: An Alternative Model for Monetary Appraisal

This paper proposes a method to evaluate health losses or gains by looking at the impact on well-being of a change in health status. The paper presents estimates of the equivalent income change that would be necessary to change general satisfaction with life to the same extent as a change in health satisfaction would do. In other words, we estimate the income equivalent of health changes. Next, the health satisfaction changes are linked to specific diseases in order to estimate the income equivalent for various diseases. This method uses answers to well-being and health satisfaction questions as posed in a large German data set. We distinguish between workers and non-workers and between inhabitants of East- and West- Germany. We find, for instance, that for West-workers hearing impediments are on average equivalent to an income reduction of about 20%, and that heart blood difficulties are for the same group equivalent to a 47% income reduction.chronic diseases, equivalent income, health damages, health satisfaction, well-being.

A Public Good Version of the Collective Household Model: An Empirical Approach with an Application to British Household Data

In this paper we consider an empirical collective household model of time allocation for two-earner households. The novelty of this paper is that we estimate a version of the collective household model, where the internally produced goods and the externally purchased goods are assumed to be public. The empirical results suggest that: (1) Preferences of men and women differ; (2) Although there are significant individual variations, on average the utility functions of men and women are equally weighted in the household utility function; (3) Differences in the ratio of the partners' hourly wages are explanatory for how individual utilities are weighted in the household utility function. (4) The female's preference for household production is influenced by family size, but this does not hold for the male; (5) Both the male and the female have a backward-bending labor supply curve; (6) Labor-supply curves are forward-bending with respect to the partner's wage rate; (7) Our model rejects the unitary Slutsky symmetry condition.labor supply, collective household models, household behavior,

A Parametric Analysis of Prospect Theory's Functionals for the General Population

This paper presents the results of an experiment that completely measures the utility function and probability weighting function for different positive and negative monetary outcomes, using a representative sample of N = 1935 from the general public. The results confirm earlier findings in the lab, suggesting that utility is less pronounced than what is found in classical measurements where expected utility is assumed. Utility for losses is found to be convex, consistent with diminishing sensitivity, and the obtained loss aversion coefficient of 1.6 is moderate but in agreement with contemporary evidence. The estimated probability weighing functions have an inverse-S shape and they imply pessimism in both domains. These results show that probability weighting is also an important phenomenon in the general population. Women and lower educated individuals are found to be more risk averse, in agreement with common findings. Unlike previous studies that ascribed gender differences in risk attitudes solely to differences in the degree utility curvature, however, our results show that this finding is primarily driven by loss aversion and, for women, also by a more pessimistic psychological response towards the probability of obtaining the best possible outcome.loss aversion, utility for gains and losses, prospect theory, subjective probability weighting