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Studies

Vendrik & Woltjer (2007): study DE 1984

Publication

Author(s):
Vendrik, M.; Woltjer, G.
Title:
Happiness and Loss Aversion: Is utility concave or convex in relative income?
Source:
Journal of Public Economics, 2007, Vol. 91, 1423 - 1448

Investigation

Public
18+ aged general public, Germany, followed 17 years, 1984-2001
Survey name
DE-SOEP combined waves
Sample
Probability multi-stage cluster sample
Respondents
N = 102068
Non Response
Assessment
Interview: face-to-face

Happiness Measure(s) and Distributional Findings

Full text:
Self report on single question:

Taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your life these days? Please answer with the help of this scale. For instance, when you are totally satisfied with your life, please tick '10'. When you are totally unsatisfied with your life, please tick '0'. You may use all values in between to indicate that you are neither totally satisfied nor totally unsatisfied."
10 totally satisfied
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0  totally unsatisfied
Classification:
O-SLW-c-sq-n-11-d
Page in publication:
1428+1440
Observed distribution
Summary Statistics
On original range 0 - 10 On range 0-10
Mean:
7.20 7.20
SD:
- -

Correlational Findings

Author's label Subject Description Finding Family income Change in income level Reference income Relative to income of similar people Age children in household Children in the household Unemployed Unemployed involuntary Years of education Years schooling Age Current age (in years) Weekly hours worked Hours work Number of children Number of children Couple/single parent Living alone or not Number of adults in household Number of persons in household R-squared Summed socio-demographic factors only