Perception and retrospection: the dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing

Stephen Pudney

No CWP12/10, CeMMAP working papers from Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract:

Implementation of broad approaches to welfare analysis usually entails the use of 'subjective' welfare indicators. We analyse BHPS data on financial wellbeing to determine whether reported current and retrospective perceptions are consistent with each other and with the existence of a common underlying wellbeing concept. We allow for adjustment of perceptions in a vector ARMA model for panel data, with dependent variables observed ordinally and find that current perceptions exhibit slow adjustment to changing circumstances and retrospective assessments of past wellbeing are heavily contaminated by current circumstances, causing significant bias in measures of the level and change in welfare.

Date: 2010-06-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://cemmap.ifs.org.uk/wps/cwp1210.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Perception and retrospection: The dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing (2011)
Journal Article: Perception and retrospection: The dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing (2011)
Working Paper: Perception and retrospection: the dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ifs:cemmap:12/10

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CeMMAP working papers from Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emma Hyman ().