%0 Report
        %A Frijters, Paul
%A New, John de
%A Shields, Michael A.
        %T The Value of Reunification in Germany: An Analysis of Changes in Life Satisfaction
        %D 2002
        %8 2002 Jan
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 419
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp419
        %X We quantify the value of changes in life circumstances in Germany following reunification. To
this end, we develop and implement a fixed-effect estimator for ordinal life satisfaction in the
German Socio-Economic Panel. We find strong negative effects on life satisfaction from
being recently fired, losing a spouse through either death or separation and time spent in
hospital, whilst we find strong positive effects from income and marriage. Using a new causal
decomposition technique, we find that East Germans experienced a continued improvement
in life satisfaction after 1990 to which increased household incomes contributed around 12%.
Most of the increase is explained by improved average circumstances, such as public
services. For West Germans, we find virtually no change in satisfaction between 1991 and
1999.
        %K random and fixed-effects
%K German reunification
%K Life satisfaction
%K panel