住房增加幸福：是投资属性还是居住属性？

本文利用中国家庭金融调查2011年的调查数据就城镇居民自有住房与个体主观幸福感的关系进行了实证研究。我们发现,房屋的资产属性(房屋产权、预期房屋价格变化和实际房屋价格变化趋势)对居民主观幸福的影响在10%的显著性水平下不显著,住房的财富效应未被发现。但是,我们的实证结果显示房屋的居住属性(房屋房间数目、房屋人均使用面积和房屋已使用时间等)均对居民主观幸福感有显著的正向影响。但是,对拥有多套房屋的家庭来说,第二套及以上房屋拥有对于他们的主观幸福感的提升既非源于房屋居住属性,也非资产属性。最后,对同为本地区的户籍居民且租房的家庭而言,是否拥有自有产权房屋对其幸福感的影响并不显著。     

The “Euro Illusion”: Illusion or Fact?

The changeover to the euro elicited an upsurge of research on the effects of the new currency on consumers’ conversion strategies, price estimates, price evaluations, choices, and purchases. This research includes longitudinal surveys, interviews, and controlled experiments, both natural and in the laboratory. The present article starts with an overview of this research after which it more specifically focuses on research showing an influence of the nominal value, as expressed in different currencies, on price evaluations and consumer choice. For most countries, the transition to the euro led to a lower nominal value currency. A bias known as the “euro illusion” has been documented such that the subjective value of money is influenced in the direction of the nominal value (i.e., in most countries prices and salaries seem smaller when expressed in euros than in the old domestic currency). Although the term was coined in connection with the euro changeover, the nominal representation of a currency has been shown to influence the subjective value of money in unfamiliar currencies other than the euro. Thus, tourists travelling abroad may frequently be subject to such an illusion. Different mechanisms have been proposed to account for the euro illusion. One is the numerosity heuristic and another the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic in conjunction with biased conversion strategies. The size of the euro illusion is influenced by trade-offs between accuracy and effort. Consistent with this hypothesis, task importance, time constraints, familiarity with the conversion strategy, complexity of the conversion strategy, mood, and attitude towards the country or the currency all influence the size of the euro illusion.     

Subjective food-risk judgements in tourists

Sources of risk in contemporary tourism vary over a long array of phenomena ranging from the risk of terror attacks to risks related to food and consumption. Currently, alleged food-risk sources such as Creutzfeldt–Jacobs Disease (CJD; commonly known as “Mad Cow Disease”), Salmonella, Scrapie disease and even genetically modified food are salient in mass media.In the present study, we addressed the pervasiveness of tourists’ judgements of such food-related risks. As part of a larger study, some 1880 individual tourists (from 48 different nations) answered a questionnaire pertaining to food-risk issues. Based on the logics of the availability heuristic, we expected that food risks would be judged to be lower in one's own home country than abroad. We also expected that people would rate various sources for food risk differently when rating food risks at home and abroad.The results indicate that risks linked to food are indeed perceived to be higher abroad than at home, regardless of where the respondents’ homes are, although attributions of risk to the various risk sources seem to vary between at home and abroad. The results also show a significant, but moderate correlation between travel experience and food-risk judgements abroad and at home. The results also indicate cultural differences in risk judgements concerning food.     

Locating leisure as the route to well-being: challenges of researching women’s leisure in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates the relation of leisure to subjective well-being by focusing on the language-based challenges during empirical research, which deeply impact upon both the substance of the data collected and its interpretation, thereby the knowledge that is produced on leisure. Drawing upon the empirical data collected via qualitative methods, the article seizes on the relationship between women’s free-time, labour, leisure and subjective well-being. The findings of the research suggest that the translation of leisure as ‘free time activities’ in Turkish creates serious challenges in researching women’s leisure. Women in this research understand leisure in multiple ways, such as an escape from boredom, a sphere of recuperation, pleasure and self-fulfilment which altogether represent their understanding of leisure as a route to their subjective well-being. Building on these findings, the article aims to highlight the importance of ethnographically guided qualitative research in uncovering both the meanings of and the interdependence between leisure and subjective well-being in both Turkey, the focus of the study, and other comparable societies around the world.     

The impossibility of compromise: some uniqueness properties of expected utility preferences

Summary. We focus on the following uniqueness property of expected utility preferences: Agreement of two preferences on one interior indifference class implies their equality. We show that, besides expected utility preferences under (objective) risk, this uniqueness property holds for subjective expected utility preferences in Anscombe-Aumann's (partially subjective) and Savage's (fully subjective) settings, while it does not hold for subjective expected utility preferences in settings without rich state spaces. Indeed, when it holds the uniqueness property is even stronger than described above, as it needs only agreement on binary acts. The extension of the uniqueness property to the subjective case is possible because beliefs in the mentioned settings are shown to satisfy an analogous property: If two decision makers agree on a likelihood indifference class, they must have identical beliefs. Received: November 15, 1999; revised version: December 29, 1999     

Consumer durables and the marginal propensity to consume out of permanent income shocks

This paper derives and estimates a model in which the utility of durable and non-durable consumption is allowed to be non-separable and individuals face a convex adjustment cost for the purchase of a new durable good. Panel data on subjective expectations allow us to identify income shocks and estimate the marginal propensity to consume out of permanent income shocks.     

The well-being of South African university students from low-income households

ABSTRACT

The role of higher education in development and social mobility is now widely acknowledged and globally recognised. In South Africa in particular, graduates have greatly increased employment prospects. This paper takes up the importance of addressing South African university students’ multi-dimensional well-being in the light of global higher education development agendas. Considering poverty and development in the space of higher education – specifically in the lives of youth from low-income households in South Africa – I draw on two waves of life history data from undergraduate students at five universities. Material-cultural conditions for a threshold of well-being emerged powerfully in every single student narrative, indicating a need for some rethinking of capability deprivation and poverty. This paper conceptualises three broad hardship categories specific to higher education, considering the multiplicity of factors and complexity of low-income in student experiences and achievements. Even though the theoretical framing draws on Sen’s capability approach and its attractive moral perspective, the paper also foregrounds students’ material well-being as significant in understanding how education can advance change, and not only reproduce social inequalities. The challenge remains, how do we reconcile resources and capabilities, and to link freedoms to financial analysis in evaluating the lives that students value?     

Event satisfaction,leisure involvement and life satisfaction at a walking event: the mediating role of life domain satisfaction

Given the rising popularity of mass-participant sport, such as walking and running events, research has started to address whether these types of events could promote life satisfaction for participants. Nevertheless, the theoretical link between event participation and life satisfaction has not been fully elaborated. Using bottom-up theory of life satisfaction, this study examined the role of event satisfaction and the three facets of leisure involvement – attraction, centrality and self-expression – in people’s life domain satisfaction and life satisfaction. Participants (N = 236) were recruited from a walking event held in western Japan. The results of the study revealed that event satisfaction had positive, indirect effects on life satisfaction through satisfaction with family life and personal achievement. Attraction in walking also had positive, indirect effects on life satisfaction through satisfaction with family life, personal achievement and social life. In contrast, centrality and self-expression in walking were not associated with satisfaction with any life domains and life satisfaction. Findings from this study highlight the importance of life domain satisfaction in the relationship between event satisfaction, leisure involvement and life satisfaction. These findings also suggest that walking events can promote life satisfaction by providing the enjoyment of walking as physically active leisure.     

Non-commitment in performance evaluation and the problem of information distortions

Auditing is modeled in a sequential game without commitment. The manager must decide whether and where to audit a worker's output, taking into account all interim information he has obtained. The worker will work just hard enough (and show it) to divert the manager from making an audit or cover up, withholding information about his work to make an audit more difficult. This usually raises the costs of setting work incentives, so incentives are softened, sometimes drastically. Moreover, when a worker's on-the-job information is valuable for entrepreneurial decisions, work incentives must be softened to improve the internal flow of information.     

The benefits of and constraints to participation in seniors’ online communities

Participation in seniors' online communities is a significant trend in elders' leisure use of the Internet. Based on an online survey of 218 members of 16 communities, this study explored the experience of participation in such communities. Results identified seven psychological benefits resulting from participation, the most salient being ‘Joyfulness’, ‘Stimulation’ and ‘Companionship’. Analysis also revealed various positive impacts on members' offline social life, interests and activities, as well as instrumental contribution. Negative experiences and several constraints to participation were discovered as well. Still, the findings suggest that the communities offer various mechanisms for enhancing seniors' well-being and promoting successful ageing.