Arbeitspapier
Direct Evidence for Income Comparisons and Subjective Well-Being across Reference Groups
This note provides evidence for the relationship between income comparisons and subjective well-being (SWB), using novel German data on self-reported comparison intensity and perceived relative income for seven reference groups. We find negative correlations between comparison intensity and SWB for colleagues, people in the same occupation and friends, but not for other reference groups, such as neighbours. Work-related income comparisons are mostly upwards and there is a strong negative correlation between perceiving to earn less than the reference group and SWB.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 5546
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
Externalities
General Welfare; Well-Being
- Subject
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income comparisons
German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)
relative income
subjective well-being
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Goerke, Laszlo
Pannenberg, Markus
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (where)
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Munich
- (when)
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2015
- Handle
- Last update
- 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Goerke, Laszlo
- Pannenberg, Markus
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Time of origin
- 2015