Financial Well-Being Components

The reported study advances psychological theory of well-being by offering deeper insight into the factors underlying financial well-being (FWB) in particular. An empirical investigation conducted into the determinants of FWB for two population groups, young workers and families with young children in the UK. Their financial decisions have important consequences for their households. A substantial internet survey of 654 people was conducted, which identified the most significant drivers of FWB or satisfaction, which is analogous to the measurement of subjective well-being in the domain of healthcare. The most significant finding from the regression is the significance for both groups of having control over their finances; control is even more important than the amount of available money for this population. A conclusion of the research is that the FWB would be increased if individuals could experience a greater sense of overall control of their money. In particular, financial institutions could provide products and processes to improve the FWB of their customers. There are also potential policy implications from the benefits of lower unsecured debt and increased savings to mitigate unexpected life events.     

The Happiness Workout

This study tests for causality from exercise and physical activity to life satisfaction (LS) by applying an instrumental variable approach with the respondents’ perceived benefits of exercise participation as instruments. Using data across 25 countries from the Eurobarometer survey, our results confirm the positive association between exercise and LS. In terms of causality, the results indicate that being active increases LS for both gender, though more for men than women. One main reason for this relationship is that exercise is perceived as being pleasurable, something that policy-makers should keep in mind when designing programmes to get us off the sofa.     

The Agree Consultant:more agreeable software?

This paper first describes a program AGREE calculating many variants of coefficients for interobserver agreement. A pilot program MOCK was written, aimed at helping unitiated users of AGREE to select the most appropriate coeflcient, given the data type and the research goal. It is a mock-up version of the data entrance and analysis sections of AGREE, to which are added some menus and a knowledge-based CONSULTANT system questioning the user. Results of a small experiment with four variants of the CONSULTANT are presented. This leads to a discussion of desirable features for this kind of help programs and preprocessors for specialized statistical software.     

Sovereign bond holdings and monetary policy operations in the euro area

This paper investigates the relationship between sovereign bond holdings of banks and refinancing operations by the ECB for countries in the euro area. We use data collected by Bruegel as well as a new dataset compiled from the annual statements of national central banks to estimate panel regression models. Our findings support the hypothesis that the ECB’s refinancing operations have increased resident banks’ exposure to domestic sovereign bonds. This is in line with the moral suasion theory advanced in the literature. These results strengthen the case for regulatory changes aimed at reducing the sensitivity of banks to sovereign risk.     

Stochastic trends in the long-run behavior of velocity: A new test of the institutional hypothesis

The institutional approach to the long-run behavior of velocity has been implemented through testing whether proxy variables for the process of monetization, the spread of commercial banking, the level of financial sophistication, and economic stability are related to movements in velocity. In this paper I argue that a valid test of this type requires that a distinction is made between trends and temporary fluctuations in velocity and the institutional proxies. When this distinction is taken into account, it appears that the long-run behavior of velocity is less easily explained by the institutional variables than previous tests suggested.