Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Bochum, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-227).

We develop a consumption model to analyze the relative importance of time and money for consumer behavior and prosperity. The model is characterized by three situations a consumer may face. Equilibrium conditions are different in each of those situations. At equilibrium A only the time constraint is binding. The appropriate situation is called relative time scarcity. At equilibrium B, relative satiation, the consumer's income constraint is binding at the optimal allocation of time. At equilibrium C, consumers deviate from their optimal allocation of time because of the income constraint. Those consumers face relative money scarcity. We analyze behavioral reactions to changes in prices, disposable income and available time in each of those three situations. It turns out that substitution effects only exist in situations of relative money scarcity - the only situation dealt with in ordinary (i.e. timeless) consumer theory. The absence of substitution effects in situations of relative time scarcity and relative satiation leads us to the conclusion, that the impact of changes in relative prices on consumer behavior is much less important than usually assumed. Another interesting result is that increases in disposable income do not necessarily lead to a gain in prosperity. The effects of changes in disposable income and time availability on prosperity depend on the situation a consumer faces.(author's abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

There are a variety of studies that show that absolute income is positively correlated with individual well-being, but find at the same time that average income of the reference group (comparison income) affects individual well-being most often negatively (Clark et al., 2008). Although the results allover the literature are quite consistent, there is a large variety how the reference group is defined. For example, some authors assume that people compare themselves with people living in the same area (Luttmer, 2005; Graham & Felton, 2006) or with people inside the same age range (McBride, 2001). Others define the reference group more precisely and assume that people compare themselves with people of same age, same education and same area of living (Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2005). However, to the best of my knowledge, there is no systematic empirical research on the impact of different reference group specifications on life satisfaction in happiness regressions. Therefore, I investigate in this master thesis to what extent different reference group specifications alter the statistical impact of comparison income on happiness regarding sign, magnitude and statistical significance. The results show that the specification of the reference group matters, since some specifications produce significant and others produce insignificant coefficients. However, the results also show that the sub-sample treated has a considerable impact on sign and statistical significance of the reference groups defined.:Chapter Page Outline II List of Figures and Tables III Abbreviations III 1 Introduction 1 2 Measurement of Happiness in Economics 2 3 The Economics of Happiness 6 3.1 The Relation between Absolute Income and Happiness 6 3.2 Unemployment, Inflation and Inequality 12 4 The Role of Relative Income 15 4.1 Empirical Evidence 16 4.1.1 Empirical Evidence for the \''Social Comparison Effect\'' 16 4.1.2 Empirical Evidence for the \''Tunnel Effect\'' 21 4.1.3 Derived Empirical Regularities 23 4.2 Theoretical Considerations 24 4.2.1 Modeling of Utility Functions 24 4.2.2 A Contribution in Explaining the Easterlin-Paradox? 26 4.2.3 Concluding Remarks 29 5 Specifications of the Reference Group 30 5.1 The Reference Group as Exogeneous Variable 30 5.2 The Reference Group as Endogeneous Variable 33 6 Different Reference Group Specifications and Life Satisfaction 35 6.1 Data Description and Choice of Variables 36 6.2 Methodology 38 6.2.1 Data Preparation 38 6.2.2 Estimation Procedure 39 6.2.3 Further Econometric Issues 44 6.3 Relative Income and Reference Group Specifications 46 6.4 Results 49 6.4.1 Whole Sample 49 6.4.1.1 Looking for the Tunnel Effect: Young and Old respondents 54 6.4.1.2 Looking for the Tunnel Effect: Transition Countries 56 6.4.2 German Sub-Samples 57 6.4.2.1 Whole German Sample 57 6.4.2.2 Looking for the Tunnel Effect: Young and Old respondents 58 6.4.3 Summary of the Empirical Results 60 6.5 Problems and Shortcomings of the Study 61 7 Conclusion 63 Appendix A – List of Variables 65 Appendix B – Correlations 67 References 68 Statement of Authorship 74

The paper uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2005 to analyze intergenerational income mobility in Austria compared to other European Union members. Applying various methodological approaches like least squares estimations and quantile regressions we reveal substantial differences in intergenerational mobility between Scandinavian countries and Continental Europe. The results show that income class rigidities in most European countries are striking compared to the Nordic countries. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Univ., Diss.--Zürich, 2001.

Economic growth might both increase and decrease income inequality, depending on the circumstances. The nature of this relationship matters at the city level as well. This paper examines the income-inequality relationship within U.S. metropolitan areas using cross-section and panel regression techniques over the 1980—2016 period. It finds that this relationship changes over time. A higher per capita income level was associated with a lower within-MSA inequality level in earlier years, but this association vanished later. For the 1980—2000 panel, per capita income increases are accordingly associated with decreases in inequality. In contrast, an increase in per capita income is associated with an increase in inequality in the 2006—2016 panel. The obtained results hint at polarization resulting from technological change substituting middle-skill routine tasks, but further research is still required to solve this puzzle.

In this paper, we argue that shadow activities and different levels of marketization of household production systematically distort international comparisons of aggregate gross household saving rates (HSRs): Higher shares of hidden income increase observed HSRs. Panel data for 18 (24) OECD-countries covering a period of a decade show that gross HSRs are positively related to the degree of corruption(used as a proxy for the propensity to shift economic activities into the shadow) and to the share of income from property and self employment. At the same time, gross HSRs are negatively related to the female employment rate, the ratio of indirect taxes to direct taxes, and to the tax wedge. One plausible story behind these phenomena might be that unobserved consumption and wages in the shadow labor market induce an upward bias in observed HSRs and profit shares, while the price level effects of a higher share of indirect taxes and a 'welfare state' effect lower observed HSRs. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

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Zugl.: Hamburg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Univ., Diss--Göteborg, 2008. / Enth. 4 Beitr. Zsfassung in engl. Sprache.