Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis

Andrew Clark (), Ed Diener, Yannis Georgellis () and Richard E. Lucas

No 84, SOEPpapers from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: We look for evidence of habituation in twenty waves of German panel data: do individuals, after life and labour market events, tend to return to some baseline level of well-being? Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, we find significant lag and lead effects. We cannot reject the hypothesis of complete adaptation to marriage, divorce, widowhood, birth of child, and layoff. However, there is little evidence of adaptation to unemployment for men. Men are somewhat more affected by labour market events (unemployment and layoffs) than are women, but in general the patterns of anticipation and adaptation are remarkably similar by sex.

Keywords: Life satisfaction; anticipation; adaptation; baseline satisfaction; labour market and life events (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J12 J13 J63 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ltv
Date: 2008
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Published in: Economic Journal 118 (2008) 529, 222-243

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.78585.de/diw_sp0084.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis (2003)
Working Paper: Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis (2003)
Working Paper: Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis (2007)
Working Paper: Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction: A Test of the Baseline Hypothesis (2006)
Journal Article: Lags And Leads in Life Satisfaction: a Test of the Baseline Hypothesis (2008)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp84

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