An increase in real per capita income is generally expected to be associated with nonnegative variations in life satisfaction. The alternative (association with negative changes) is generally defined as "frustrated achievement" [Graham, C., Pettinato, S., 2002. Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies. The Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C.]. We investigate the determinants of "frustrated achievement" in the German socioeconomic panel on more than 30,000 individuals collected between 1992 and 2004. We observe a parallel reduction in self-declared life satisfaction corresponding to almost one-third of yearly increases in (equalised) real household income. Our econometric findings show that the lack of a full-time job, health deterioration, relative income effects, marital status shocks and poorer social life are the main factors associated with this phenomenon.
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Volume (Year): 38 (2009) Issue (Month): 1 (January) Pages: 159-167 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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