IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/leiwps/317773.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"Economic Discomfort" in Germany 1951 to 2021: Results and policy implications

Author

Listed:
  • Heilemann, Ullrich
  • Schuhr, Roland

Abstract

Okun's misery index (MI), the sum of unemployment rate and inflation rate, is a popular measure of the state of the economy and thus of (macro) '' Economic Discomfort'' as well as of government performance. We calculate the MI and some augmentations for Germany (until 1990: West Germany) for the period 1951-2021 and test them against a survey-based indicator of government performance ("ZDF-Politbarometer-Index"). The results support Okun's choice of variables, but reject its augmentation by the growth rate and the deficit ratio. Just as importantly, the effect of unemployment is almost twice as large as that of inflation, and both change considerably over time, as stability tests show. In assessing the performance of governments, MI rankings differ from those of their augmentations. Since the mid-1970s, however, the differences are limited. Barro's Misery Index, a comparative approach to assessing governments that is an alternative to MI, reaches opposite judgments than MI, but lacks empirical support. The implications for policymakers are both sobering and reassuring: as policy simulations and implied Phillips type trade-offs reveal, the sensitivity of MIs to macroeconomic policy is very low. This may not only hold for Germany given similar international evidence on MIs. The fact that the MI covers the two main macroeconomic objectives, is based on the latest official data, easy to calculate and internationally comparable makes Okun's Misery Index a useful indicator of Economic Discomfort for Germany as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Heilemann, Ullrich & Schuhr, Roland, 2025. ""Economic Discomfort" in Germany 1951 to 2021: Results and policy implications," Working Papers 183, University of Leipzig, Faculty of Economics and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:leiwps:317773
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/317773/1/1925316939.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mueller, John E., 1970. "Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 18-34, March.
    2. Rafael Di Tella & Robert J. MacCulloch & Andrew J. Oswald, 2003. "The Macroeconomics of Happiness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 809-827, November.
    3. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
    4. David G. Blanchflower & David N.F. Bell & Alberto Montagnoli & Mirko Moro, 2014. "The Happiness Trade‐Off between Unemployment and Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(S2), pages 117-141, October.
    5. Smyth, David J & Dua, Pami & Taylor, Susan Washburn, 1994. "Voters and Macroeconomics: Are They Forward Looking or Backward Looking?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 78(3-4), pages 283-293, March.
    6. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2011-031 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Greene, William H & Seaks, Terry G, 1991. "The Restricted Least Squares Estimator: A Pedagogical Note," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(3), pages 563-567, August.
    8. Michael C. Burda & Jennifer Hunt, 2011. "What Explains the German Labor Market Miracle in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 273-335.
    9. Ivan K. Cohen & Fabrizio Ferretti & Bryan McIntosh, 2014. "Decomposing the misery index: A dynamic approach," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-8, December.
    10. Martin A. Asher & Robert H. Defina & Kishor Thanawala, 1993. "The Misery Index: Only Part of the Story," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 58-62, March.
    11. Heinz Welsch, 2007. "Macroeconomics and life satisfaction: Revisiting the "misery index"," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 10, pages 237-251, November.
    12. Berlemann, Michael & Enkelmann, Sören, 2014. "The economic determinants of U.S. presidential approval: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 41-54.
    13. Ploberger, Werner & Kramer, Walter, 1992. "The CUSUM Test with OLS Residuals," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 271-285, March.
    14. Heinz Welsch, 2011. "The magic triangle of macroeconomics: how do European countries score?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 71-93, January.
    15. Michael C. & Pao-Lin Tien, 2000. "Economic Discomfort and Consumer Sentiment," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 1-8, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oliver Picek, 2017. "The "Magic Square" of Economic Policy measured by a Macroeconomic Performance Index," Working Papers 1702, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    2. 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.
    3. Elias Gakuru & Shaohua Yang, 2025. "Misery Index Improvement: A Review Based on Theoretical and Empirical Evidence," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 16(1), pages 3970-3995, March.
    4. Fernando Sánchez López, 2022. "Measuring the Effect of the Misery Index on International Tourist Departures: Empirical Evidence from Mexico," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-16, April.
    5. Malte Hübner & Marcus Klemm, 2015. "Preferences over inflation and unemployment in Europe: a north–south divide?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 62(4), pages 319-335, December.
    6. Łukasz Below, 2023. "Does inflation matter? The influence of perceived price changes on well-being," KAE Working Papers 2023-086, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    7. repec:old:wpaper:342 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Heinz Welsch & Jan Kühling, 2011. "Comparative Economic Performance and Institutional Change in OECD Countries: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data," Working Papers V-342-11, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2011.
    9. repec:zbw:hohpro:342 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. 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.
    11. Sakiru Adebola Solarin & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Carmen Lafuente, 2020. "Persistence of the Misery Index in African Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 825-841, February.
    12. Alberto Montagnoli & Mirko Moro, 2018. "The Cost of Banking Crises: New Evidence from Life Satisfaction Data," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 279-309, May.
    13. Alberto Prati, 2024. "The Well‐Being Cost of Inflation Inequalities," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 70(1), pages 213-238, March.
    14. Sarah Brown & Alexandros Kontonikas & Alberto Montagnoli & Mirko Moro & Luisanna Onnis, 2018. "Austerity, Life Satisfaction and Expectations," Working Papers 2018001, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    15. Brown, Sarah & Kontonikas, Alexandros & Montagnoli, Alberto & Moro, Mirko & Onnis, Luisanna, 2021. "Life satisfaction and austerity: Expectations and the macroeconomy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    16. Gregor Gonza & Anže Burger, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being During the 2008 Economic Crisis: Identification of Mediating and Moderating Factors," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1763-1797, December.
    17. Heinz Welsch & Jan Kühling, 2016. "How Has The Crisis Of 2008–09 Affected Subjective Well-Being? Evidence From 25 Oecd Countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 34-54, January.
    18. Yadollah Dadgar & Rouhollah Nazari, 2018. "The impact of economic growth and good governance on misery index in Iranian economy," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 175-193, February.
    19. David G. Blanchflower & David N.F. Bell & Alberto Montagnoli & Mirko Moro, 2014. "The Happiness Trade‐Off between Unemployment and Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(S2), pages 117-141, October.
    20. Sechel, Cristina, 2021. "The share of satisfied individuals: A headcount measure of aggregate subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 373-394.
    21. Michael Berlemann & Sören Enkelmann & Torben Kuhlenkasper, 2015. "Unraveling the Relationship Between Presidential Approval and the Economy: A Multidimensional Semiparametric Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 468-486, April.
    22. Sabna Ali & Syed Mansoob Murshed & Elissaios Papyrakis, 2020. "Happiness and the Resource Curse," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 437-464, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

    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:zbw:leiwps:317773. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vileide.html .

    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.