TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Decancq, Koen
AU  - Neumann, Dirk
        TI  - Does the Choice of Well-Being Measure Matter Empirically? An Illustration with German Data
        PY  - 2014/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 8589
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp8589
        AB  - We discuss and compare five measures of individual well-being, namely income, an objective composite well-being index, a measure of subjective well-being, equivalent income, and a well-being measure based on the von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities of the individuals. After examining the information requirements of these measures, we illustrate their implementation using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for 2010. We find sizeable differences in the characteristics of the individuals identified as worst off according to the different well-being measures. Less than 1% of the individuals belong to the bottom decile according to all five measures. Moreover, the measures lead to considerably different well-being rankings of the individuals. These findings highlight the importance of the choice of well-being measure for policy making.
        KW  - von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function
KW  - equivalent income
KW  - life satisfaction
KW  - composite well-being index
KW  - income
KW  - worst off
KW  - Germany
        ER  -