This paper considers the psychological impact of past unemployment. Using eleven waves of German panel data, we show that life satisfaction is lower not only for the current unemployed (relative to the employed), but also for those with higher levels of past unemployment. However, the negative...

This paper provides some of the first empirical evidence on the psychological impact of past unemployment. Using eleven waves of the German socio-economic panel (GSOEP) data set, we show, as is now standard, that those currently unemployed have far lower life satisfaction scores than do the...

Part I How can we know who is happy? Conceptual and methodological issues -- Objective happiness / Daniel Kahneman -- Ecological momentary assessment / Arthur A. Stone, Sual S. Shiffman, Marten W. DeVries -- Measurement issues in emotion research / Randy J. Larsen and Barbara L. Fredrickson --...