Piper, A (2022) Optimism, pessimism and life satisfaction: an empirical investigation. International Review of Economics, 69 (2). pp. 177-208. ISSN 1865-1704
Abstract
This is an empirical investigation into life satisfaction, using nationally representative German panel data. The study confirms with modern econometric techniques the previously found substantial association with an individual’s thoughts about the future, whether they are optimistic or pessimistic about it, with life satisfaction. In addition, the investigation demonstrates that the association holds when some possibly anticipated events (like, for example, divorce and unemployment) are controlled for. Furthermore, including individuals’ optimism and pessimism about the future substantially increases the explanatory power of standard life satisfaction models. The effect size is greater for individuals who report being pessimistic than that for well-understood negative events like unemployment. These effects are attenuated though do remain substantial after controlling for the following: individual fixed effects; statistically matching on observable variables between optimistic and pessimistic individuals; and addressing the potential endogeneity of optimism and pessimism to life satisfaction.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Life satisfaction; Subjective well-being; Mental health; Entropy balancing; GMM; Dynamics; Endogeneity; SOEP |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Economics Division (LUBS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Apr 2022 13:39 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:58 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s12232-022-00390-8 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:186164 |
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