Other-regarding preferences, spousal disability and happiness: Evidence from German couples

Nils Braakmann

No 130, Working Paper Series in Economics from University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics

Abstract: This paper considers the impact of adverse health shocks that hit an individual’s partner on subjective well-being. Using data on couples from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1984 to 2006, I compare the losses in well-being caused by own and spousal disability using panel-regressions. I find that women and to a lesser extent men are harmed by spousal disability which is consistent with the existence of other-regarding preferences within couples. The magnitude of effects suggests that spousal disability is about one quarter to one half as harmful as individual disability with larger effects being found for women.

Keywords: disability; subjective well-being; other-regarding preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 I10 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2009-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Fors ... df/wp_130_Upload.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_130_Upload.pdf [303 See Other]--> https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/workingpapers/lue/pdf/wp_130_upload.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Other-Regarding Preferences, Spousal Disability and Happiness: Evidence from German Couples (2009)
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:lue:wpaper:130

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series in Economics from University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Wagner ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).