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Nominal or Real? The Impact of Regional Price Levels on Satisfaction with Life

Author

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  • Deckers Thomas
  • Falk Armin
  • Schildberg-Hörisch Hannah

    (Institute of Applied Microeconomics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24–42, 53113 Bonn, Germany)

Abstract

According to economic theory, real income, i. e., nominal income adjusted for purchasing power, should be the relevant source of life satisfaction. Previous work, however, has studied the impact of inflation-adjusted nominal income and hardly taken into account regional differences in purchasing power. We use novel data to study how regional price levels affect life satisfaction. The data set comprises a price level for each of the 428 administrative districts in Germany. Controlling for district heterogeneity other than the price level, our results show that higher price levels significantly reduce life satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Deckers Thomas & Falk Armin & Schildberg-Hörisch Hannah, 2016. "Nominal or Real? The Impact of Regional Price Levels on Satisfaction with Life," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 1337-1358, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:16:y:2016:i:3:p:1337-1358:n:7
    DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2015-0215
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    Cited by:

    1. Petr Jansky & Marek Sedivy, 2018. "How Do Regional Price Levels Affect Income Inequality? Household-Level Evidence from 21 Countries," Working Papers IES 2018/24, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2018.
    2. Edsel L. Beja Jr., 2017. "Subjective well-being approach for testing money illusion-evidence using data from Social Weather Stations," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 54(1), pages 47-62, June.
    3. Nguyen, Ha & Duncan, Alan, 2015. "Macroeconomic fluctuations in home countries and immigrants’ well-being: New evidence from Down Under," MPRA Paper 69593, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2016.
    4. Sebastian Weinand & Ludwig von Auer, 2019. "Anatomy of Regional Price Differentials: Evidence From Micro Price Data," Research Papers in Economics 2019-03, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    5. Sebastian Weinand & Ludwig von Auer, 2019. "Anatomy of Regional Price Differentials: Evidence From Micro Price Data," RatSWD Working Papers 268, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    6. Alberto Montagnoli & Andrea Vaona, 2015. "Searching for Money Illusion in Europe," Working Papers 10/2015, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    7. Petr Janský & Dominika Kolcunová, 2017. "Regional differences in price levels across the European Union and their implications for its regional policy," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 58(3), pages 641-660, May.
    8. Ha Trong Nguyen & Luke Brian Connelly, 2018. "Out of sight but not out of mind: Home countries' macroeconomic volatilities and immigrants' mental health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 189-208, January.
    9. Weinand, Sebastian & von Auer, Ludwig, 2019. "Anatomy of regional price differentials: Evidence from micro price data," Discussion Papers 04/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    10. Natascha Hainbach & Christoph Halbmeier & Timo Schmid & Carsten Schröder, 2019. "A Practical Guide for the Computation of Domain-Level Estimates with the Socio-Economic Panel (and Other Household Surveys)," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1055, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    life satisfaction; neutrality of money; price index; real income; standard of living;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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