After the introduction in Section 2, we very briefly sketch out current theoretical and empirical developments in the social sciences. In our view, they all point in the same direction: toward the acute and increasing need for multidisciplinary longitudinal data covering a wide range of living...

Using a unique dataset we study both the actual and self-perceived relationship between subjective well-being and income comparisons against a wide range of potential comparison groups, enabling us to investigate a broader range of questions than in previous studies. In questions inserted into a...

Using data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values,...

This paper demonstrates how quality of life can be measured by plain text in a representative survey, the German Socio Economic Panel study (SOEP). Furthermore, the paper shows that problems that are difficult to monitor, especially problems like the state of the European Union, long-term...

Das Papier geht der Frage nach, ob sich Berufspolitikerinnen und Berufspolitiker in ihren Risikoeinstellungen systematisch von der allgemeinen Bevölkerung unterscheiden. In einer schriftlichen Befragung von Mitgliedern des 17. Deutschen Bundestags wurde Ende 2011 die Risikoeinstellungen...

The article analyzes the question of whether career politicians differ systematically from the general population in terms of their attitudes toward risk. A written survey of members of the 17th German Bundestag in late 2011 identified their risk attitudes, and the survey data was set in...

Die vorliegende Studie befasst sich mit der Analyse der Stabilität der Lebenszufriedenheit, auf Basis der Paneldaten des sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP). Benutzt wird das neuartige Konzept der longitudinalen Entropie und so können bereits in der Literatur vorliegende Analysen zur...

The Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) is a multidisciplinary study that allows for the investigation of how a multitude of health status factors as well as many other social and economic outcomes interplay. The sample consists of 1,600 participants aged 60 to 80, and 600 participants aged 20 to...

We investigate how worries in Germany change across time and age, drawing on both closed-ended questions (which typically list a number of worry items) and open-ended questions answered in text format. We find that relevant world events influence worries. For example, worries about peace peaked...

As from a political economy perspective, politicians often fail to implement structural reforms, we investigate if the resistance to reform is based on the differences in the risk preferences of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. Based on the empirical results of a survey of the population in...