IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v95y2011i3-4p300-310.html

Perception and retrospection: The dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing

Author

Listed:
  • Pudney, Stephen

Abstract

Implementation of broad approaches to welfare analysis usually entails the use of 'subjective' welfare indicators. We analyse BHPS data on financial wellbeing to determine whether reported current and retrospective perceptions are consistent with each other and with the existence of a common underlying wellbeing concept. We allow for adjustment of perceptions in a vector ARMA model for panel data, with dependent variables observed ordinally and find that current perceptions exhibit slow adjustment to changing circumstances and retrospective assessments of past wellbeing are heavily contaminated by current circumstances, causing significant bias in measures of the level and change in welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Pudney, Stephen, 2011. "Perception and retrospection: The dynamic consistency of responses to survey questions on wellbeing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 300-310, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:3-4:p:300-310
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2727(10)00110-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Binder, Martin & Coad, Alex, 2013. "“I'm afraid I have bad news for you…” Estimating the impact of different health impairments on subjective well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 155-167.
    2. R. Bollinger, Christopher & Nicoletti, Cheti & Pudney, Stephen, 2012. "Two can live as cheaply as one… but three’s a crowd," ISER Working Paper Series 2012-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Georgios Marios & María Dolores, 2024. "Identifying the economic determinants of individual voting behaviour in UK general elections," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(1), pages 267-289.
    4. Pudney, Stephen & Booker, Cara, 2013. "In sickness and in health? Comorbidity in older couples," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-30, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Anita Ratcliffe & Karl Taylor, 2013. "Who Cares about Stock Market Booms and Busts? Evidence from Data on Mental Wellbeing," Working Papers 2012021, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    6. Tomasz Potocki & Sylwester Białowąs, 2023. "What Factors Predict a Positive Change in a Consumer’s Financial Capability over Time? The New Evidence from Poland," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 634-654, September.
    7. Nurul Shahnaz Mahdzan & Rozaimah Zainudin & Mohd Edil Abd. Sukor & Fauzi Zainir & Wan Marhaini Wan Ahmad, 2019. "Determinants of Subjective Financial Well-Being Across Three Different Household Income Groups in Malaysia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 699-726, December.
    8. Adrian Chadi, 2019. "Dissatisfied with life or with being interviewed? Happiness and the motivation to participate in a survey," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 519-553, October.
    9. Christopher R. Bollinger & Cheti Nicoletti & Stephen Pudney, 2012. "Two can live as cheaply as one... But three's a crowd," Discussion Papers 12/23, Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Anita Ratcliffe, 2015. "Wealth Effects, Local Area Attributes, and Economic Prospects: On the Relationship between House Prices and Mental Wellbeing," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(1), pages 75-92, March.
    11. Anna Maffioletti, Agata Maida, Francesco Scacciati, 2019. "Happiness, life satisfaction, well-being: survey design and response analysis," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 16(2), pages 277-312, December.
    12. Rui Xue & Adrian Gepp & Terry J. O'Neill & Steven Stern & Bruce J. Vanstone, 2020. "Financial well‐being amongst elderly Australians: the role of consumption patterns and financial literacy," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 4361-4386, December.
    13. Begoña Álvarez, 2022. "The Best Years of Older Europeans’ Lives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 227-260, February.
    14. Schmied, Julian, 2023. "The replacement rate that maintains income satisfaction through retirement: The question of income-dependence," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    15. Orcun Kaya, 2014. "Is perceived financial inadequacy persistent?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 636-654, December.
    16. Hernandez-Alava, Monica & Pudney, Stephen, 2015. "BICOP: a Stata command for fitting bivariate ordinal regressions with residual dependence characterised by a copula function and normal mixture marginals," Understanding Society Working Paper Series 2015-02, Understanding Society at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Luisa Corrado & Majlinda Joxhe, 2016. "The Effect of Survey Design on Extreme Response Style: Rating Job Satisfaction," CEIS Research Paper 365, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 08 Feb 2016.
    18. Stephen J Aguilar & Clare Baek, 2020. "Sexual harassment in academe is underreported, especially by students in the life and physical sciences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:3-4:p:300-310. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.