Research Note - Tax-Benefit Microsimulation Models In Eastern Europe

book reviewNew member States, European Union, tax-benefit, features

Tasting Freedom: Happiness, religion and economic transition

Economic transition lowered happiness on average, but did not affect all equally. This paper uses Hungarian survey data to study the impact of religion and economic transition on happiness. Religious involvement contributes positively to individuals' self-reported well-being. Controlling for personal characteristics of the respondents, money is a less important source of happiness for the religious. The impact of economic transition has varied greatly across different groups. The main winners from increasing economic freedom were the entrepreneurs. The religious were little affected by the changes. This implies that greater ideological freedom, measured by a greater social role of churches, may not influence happiness per se.Happiness, economic transition, religion, entrepreneurs

Happiness over the life cycle: exploring age-specific preferences

Existing evidence suggests a U-shaped relationship between age and life satisfaction, when controlling for income and education and other personal characteristics. On the other hand, there is no clear pattern between old age and happiness without the use of controls. Thus, it is not ageing as such, which results declining happiness, but rather the circumstances which are associated with ageing. Which of these circumstances could be averted? Are the preferences of the elderly are similar to others? The paper aims to explore these issues, using the European Social Survey. The results imply that the varying level of life satisfaction during the life cycle may be explained partly by changing preferences (by the decreasing importance of work, the increasing importance of religion, and the declining disutility of being single), and partly by changing circumstances. While changing preferences seem to increase well-being, changing circumstances seem to decrease it. Exceptions are the few positive changes in circumstances, which are likely to contribute to higher well-being, include increasing religiosity and relatively low pensioners’ poverty across the 21 European countries examined here. Old days thus are happy above all due to changing priorities in life.Life Satisfaction, Age, Preferences

Knowing what is good for you: Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the 'objective good'

This paper aims to test empirically if certain frequently used measures of well-being, which are regarded as valuable properties of human life, are actually desired by people. In other words, it investigates whether the "expert judgments" in social science overlap with social consensus on what the "good life" is. The starting hypothesis is that there is an overlap between these two in the case of basic needs. For the analysis, individuals' self-reported life satisfaction is used as a proxy for "utility", based on survey data, which includes about 30 000 individuals from 21 different European countries. The results indicate that the commonly used measures of well-being - labour market situation, health, housing conditions and social relations - significantly influence people's satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Next, the stability of preferences is tested using Hungarian data from the 1990s. The results indicate that there was only very limited change in the relationship between life satisfaction and basic measures of well-being despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation.quality of life, capabilities, happiness, basic needs, economic transition

Knowing what is good for you. Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the 'objective good'

This paper aims to test empirically if certain frequently used measures of well-being, which are regarded as valuable properties of human life, are actually desired by people. In other words, it investigates whether the “expert judgments” in social science overlap with social consensus on what the “good life” is. The starting hypothesis is that there is an overlap between these two in the case of basic needs. For the analysis, individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction is used as a proxy for “utility”, based on survey data, which includes about 30 000 individuals from 21 different European countries. The results indicate that the commonly used measures of well-being - labour market situation, health, housing conditions and social relations - significantly influence people’s satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Next, the stability of preferences is tested using Hungarian data from the 1990s. The results indicate that there was only very limited change in the relationship between life satisfaction and basic measures of well-being despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation.quality of life, capabilities, happiness, basic needs, economic transition

Knowing what is good for you. Empirical analysis of personal preferences and the “objective good”

The paper argues that there is a cherishable overlap between “objective good” and people’s preferences in measures of well-being. Firstly, using recent survey data from twenty European countries I analyse the determinants of individual’s “experienced utility”. The proxy for utility is overall life satisfaction. The results indicate that various measures of well-being which are normally used for assessing people’s quality of life do indeed significantly influence people’s utility. The estimated micro-econometric life satisfaction equations suggest that an individual’s labour market situation, housing conditions and social relations significantly contribute to his overall life satisfaction, over and above the level of his income. The findings also imply that the use of non-income measures in standard analyses of well-being is justified on the grounds that these measures do have intrinsic value for the people over and above their incomes. In the second part of the paper, the stability of the relationship is tested using survey data from Hungary from the 1990s. The results show that there was only very limited change in this relationship despite the landslide of societal and economic transformation. Entrepreneurs have become more satisfied, but there is no change in the relationship of income and life satisfaction, ceteris paribus. Overall, thus the relationship between basic measures of objective well-being and people’s preferences seems to be stable.

Deliver us from Evil: Religion as insurance

This paper focusses on the insurance role of religion in buffering the well-being impact of stressful life events, and the ensuing economic and social implications. Using two large-scale European data sets, we show that the religious enjoy higher levels of life satisfaction, and that religion does insure against some adverse life events. All denominations suffer less psychological harm from unemployment than do the non-religious; equally both Catholics and Protestants are less hurt by marital separation. However, while Protestants are protected against divorce, Catholics are punished for it. These results do not seem to come about from the endogeneity of religion. These patterns in subjective well-being correspond to data on both attitudes (the religious are both anti-divorce and anti-job creation for the unemployed) and behaviour (the religious unemployed are less likely to be actively looking for work). In panel data, as implied by insurance, the religious have less variation in life satisfaction. Last, we suggest that religion s insurance role might be reflected in support for different economic and social systems: consistent with this, unemployment replacement rates across Europe are lower in more religious countries.Life Satisfaction, Religion, Unemployment, Marriage, Divorce, Insurance.

Boldog-boldogtalan – a közpolitika szerepe

A szubjektív jóllét, a boldogság számtalan egyéni és társadalmi haszonnal jár: oksági kapcsolatban áll az egészséggel, a közösségorientált viselkedéssel, a termelékenységgel és a kreativitással. Egyre több vizsgálat bizonyítja a mutatók érvényességét és megbízhatóságát, s mindinkább használják őket nemzetközi intézmények és nemzeti kormányok. Ez azonban még nem jelenti a boldogság maximalizálására való törekvést. A tanulmány szerzője saját számításai alapján amellett érvel, hogy a kormányzatnak érdemes törekednie az elkerülhető boldogtalanság felszámolására, hiszen ezt hatékonyan teheti meg, és komoly etikai érvek is szólnak mellette. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kód: I31, H89, D19

The loneliness of the unemployed: social and political participation in Germany in a European context

The economic and social crisis highlights the importance of social connections, as they could potentially function as a sort of "personal safety net". These connections can provide social support, access to information, informal help or jobs, emotional support (Coleman 1990), and may deeply affect an individual’s ability to cope with job loss or declining incomes. On a social level, political activities, volunteering, helping each other, keeping a promise or telling the truth, are the "cement of society". It becomes critically important in a social climate of increasing uncertainty and risk. This article focuses on social and political participation indicators, including trust, social meetings, political activities and social isolation. We present Germany in a European context, and also compare the situation of specific social groups in Germany. The unemployed are particularly exposed to social isolation: about one out of eight German unemployed have no close friend at all. In addition, they are less likely to be politically active, which reduces their interest representation potentials