2011-05-14 papers

on Economics of Happiness

Issue of 2011‒05‒14
two papers chosen by

Are Self-Employed Really Happier Than Employees? An Approach Modelling Adaptation and Anticipation Effects to Self-Employment and General Job Changes By Dominik Hanglberger; Joachim Merz
Does Job Satisfaction Adapt to Working Conditions? An Empirical Analysis for Rotating Shift Work, Flextime,and Temporary Employment in UK By Dominik Hanglberger

Are Self-Employed Really Happier Than Employees? An Approach Modelling Adaptation and Anticipation Effects to Self-Employment and General Job Changes

By:	Dominik Hanglberger; Joachim Merz (LEUPHANA University Lüneburg,Department of Economic, Behaviour and Law Sciences, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)))
Abstract:	Empirical analyses using cross-sectional and panel data found significantly higher levels of job satisfaction for self-employed than for employees. We argue that those estimates in previous studies might be biased by neglecting anticipation and adaptation effects. For testing we specify several models accounting for anticipation and adaptation to self-employment and job changes. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP) we find that becoming self-employed is associated with large negative anticipation effects. In contrast to recent literature we find no specific long term effect of self-employment on job satisfaction. Accounting for anticipation and adaptation to job changes in general, which includes changes between employee jobs, reduces the effect of self-employment on job satisfaction by 70%. When controlling for anticipation and adaptation to job changes, we find no further anticipation effect of self-employment and a weak positive but not significant effect of self-employment on job satisfaction for three years. Thus adaptation wipes out higher satisfaction within the first three years being self-employed. According to our results previous studies at least overestimated possible positive effects of self-employment on job satisfaction.
Keywords:	job satisfaction, self-employment, hedonic treadmill model, adaptation, anticipation, fixed-effects panel estimations, German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)
JEL:	J23 J28 J81
Date:	2011–03
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:leu:wpaper:88&r=hap

Does Job Satisfaction Adapt to Working Conditions? An Empirical Analysis for Rotating Shift Work, Flextime,and Temporary Employment in UK

By:	Dominik Hanglberger (LEUPHANA University Lüneburg,Department of Economic, Behaviour and Law Sciences, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)))
Abstract:	The hedonic treadmill model for subjective well-being was subject to several recent empirical analyses based on individual panel data. Most of this adaptation literature is concentrated on how life events affect measures of life satisfaction and happiness, whereas adaptation processes of domain satisfactions like job satisfaction are largely unstudied. The aim of this paper is to test empirically adaptation processes of self-reported job satisfaction. For this purpose we consider flexibility characteristics of a job and derive hypotheses about which flexibility measures allow for or impede adaptation processes. Hypotheses are tested using data from up to 18 waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). We estimate fixed-effects panel models to test adaptation processes based on intra-individual changes in job satisfaction. Our results show no adaptation to rotating shift work, little adaptation to temporary employment, but full adaptation to flextime regulations.
Keywords:	job satisfaction, adaptation, hedonic treadmill model, rotating shift work, temporary employment, flextime, British Household Panel Study, fixed-effects panel estimation
JEL:	J28 J81
Date:	2011–03
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:leu:wpaper:87&r=hap

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