Well-being Changes from Year to Year: A Comparison of Current, Remembered and Predicted Life Satisfaction

Marcus Klemm ()
Additional contact information
Marcus Klemm: University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2022, vol. 23, issue 4, No 18, 1669-1681

Abstract: Abstract I study yearly changes in personal well-being combining data on current, retrospective and prospective life satisfaction from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Predicted and remembered changes in life satisfaction are both positive on average and match well, whereas the average year to year-change inferred from reports of current life satisfaction is negative. Retrospective assessments of past well-being are strongly influenced by current life satisfaction, significantly related to past life satisfaction and linked to past predictions of current satisfaction. Due to different problems related to the ordinal measurement scale, changes in subjective reference systems and recall ability, the analysis overall suggests that direct reports of intertemporal changes provide valuable additional information for the analysis of individual well-being.

Keywords: Life satisfaction; Intertemporal comparison; Response shift; Memory bias; Forecast error; Adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 C18 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-021-00468-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:jhappi:v:23:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10902-021-00468-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... fe/journal/10902/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-021-00468-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Happiness Studies is currently edited by Antonella Delle Fave

More articles in Journal of Happiness Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().