The economics of happiness, or subjective well being, is an expanding field, with a growing
number of applied papers reporting empirical associations between happiness and other …

We review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on public
spending and on individual support for the welfare state. The survey puts a particular focus …

The well-known Easterlin paradox points out that average happiness has remained constant
over time despite sharp rises in GNP per head. At the same time, a micro literature has …

This paper investigates whether individuals feel worse off when others around them earn
more. In other words, do people care about relative position, and does “lagging behind the …

This article provides unprecedented direct evidence from large‐scale survey data on both
the intensity (how much?) and direction (to whom?) of income comparisons. Income …

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of
16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well‐being levels are shown to …

This study proposes subjective social status—a person's perception of his/her standing in
the social hierarchy—is an important psychological mechanism driving the inequality …

Abstract Using the Chinese Household Finance Survey data set, the study shows that
concern with relative income significantly stimulates poor households to apply for bank …

We use matched employer–employee panel data to show that individual job satisfaction is
higher when other workers in the same establishment are better‐paid. This runs counter to …

This paper provides direct evidence that income comparisons exert a significant impact on
subjective well-being. It also evaluates the relative importance of different types of …