Investigating the Patterns and Determinants of Life Satisfaction in Germany Following Reunification
利用德国社会经济面板数据，分析统一后东西德居民生活满意度的变化模式与决定因素，发现失业、丧偶、住院等事件有负面影响，而收入与婚姻有正面作用；东德居民满意度持续提升，其中收入增长贡献约12%，大部分改善源于更好的平均条件如政治自由。
This paper investigates the patterns and determinants of life satisfaction in Germany following reunification. We implement a new fixed-effect estimator for ordinal life satisfaction in the German Socio-Economic Panel and find negative effects on life satisfaction from being recently fired, losing a spouse through either death or separation, and time spent in hospital, while 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 to which increased household incomes contributed around 12 percent. Most of the improvement is explained by better average circumstances, such as greater political freedom. For West Germans, we find little change in average life satisfaction over this period.