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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2007‒08‒27
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Andrew K. Rose (University of California) |
| Abstract: | Is it better to live in a big county than a small country? In this paper I examine whether economic and social conditions vary systematically with the population of a country. Economics provides a number of theoretical reasons why country size should matter, for instance because of increasing returns to scale or because it is easier to provide public goods to a larger populace. However there is little empirical evidence that links the scale of a country size to any of a multitude of indicators of economic and social welfare. |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hkm:wpaper:142006&r=hap |
| By: | BECCHETTI LEONARDO; CASTRIOTA STEFANO; ROSSETTI FIAMMETTA |
| Abstract: | A widespread opinion, supported by many theoretical contributions of philosophers and economists, states that economic prosperity has positive consequences on material wellbeing which are traded off by negative “moral” consequences and social externalities. An opposite school of thought challenges this view by emphasizing that economic growth has also beneficial moral consequences in terms of higher tolerance, affection towards democracy, generosity and social consensus for competition. This paper focuses on the presumed positive effect of economic growth on tolerance, so far unexplored in the literature from an empirical point of view. Using panel data from the German Socioeconomic Panel on around 33,000 individuals over the period 1992-2004 we find a robust positive relationship between real personal household income and self-declared tolerance, both in levels and first differences. Our results suggest that growth may have positive moral consequences assumed that it translates from aggregate into individual level. |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceiswp:254&r=hap |
| By: | Kokko , Ari (European Institute of Japanese Studies); Gustavsson Tingvall, Patrik (China Economic Research Center) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to track the development of three components of the Vietnamese welfare state since the introduction of market-oriented economic reforms in the late 1980s: education, health, and social insurance. This is done with reference to Sweden's historical experiences of economic and social development. While Vietnam has achieved remarkable success in both the education and health sectors, with increasing literacy rates, school enrolment rates, and improving health indicators, it is clear that the Vietnamese welfare state is fragmented. Access to social services and social security varies across social groups and geographical regions, and some parts of society are becoming marginalized, in the sense that they -and their children- have limited possibilities to improve their living standards, or to benefit from the general development of the Vietnamese society. On the basis of Swedish experiences, the authors argue for gradually increased investments in the social sectors and a stronger focus on universal rather than means-tested benefits, and provide some more specific suggestions for reforms in education, health, and social insurance. |
| Keywords: | Vietnam; economic reforms; education; health care; social insurance |
| JEL: | H55 I18 I28 I38 O10 |
| Date: | 2007–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:eijswp:0235&r=hap |
| By: | Angus Deaton |
| Abstract: | During 2006, the Gallup Organization conducted a World Poll that used an identical questionnaire for national samples of adults from 132 countries. I analyze the data on life satisfaction (happiness) and on health satisfaction and look at their relationships with national income, age, and life-expectancy. Average happiness is strongly related to per capita national income; each doubling of income is associated with a near one point increase in life satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10. Unlike most previous findings, the effect holds across the range of international incomes; if anything, it is slightly stronger among rich countries. Conditional on national income, recent economic growth makes people unhappier, improvements in life-expectancy make them happier, but life-expectancy itself has little effect. Age has an internationally inconsistent relationship with happiness. National income moderates the effects of aging on self-reported health, and the decline in health satisfaction and rise in disability with age are much stronger in poor countries than in rich countries. In line with earlier findings, people in much of Eastern Europe and in the countries of the former Soviet Union are particularly unhappy and particularly dissatisfied with their health, and older people in those countries are much less satisfied with their lives and with their health than are younger people. HIV prevalence in Africa has little effect on Africans' life or health satisfaction; the fraction of Kenyans who are satisfied with their personal health is the same as the fraction of Britons and higher than the fraction of Americans. The US ranks 81st out of 115 countries in the fraction of people who have confidence in their healthcare system, and has a lower score than countries such as India, Iran, Malawi, or Sierra Leone. While the strong relationship between life-satisfaction and income gives some credence to the measures, as do the low levels of life and health satisfaction in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, the lack of correlations between life and health satisfaction and health measures shows that happiness (or self-reported health) measures cannot be regarded as useful summary indicators of human welfare in international comparisons. |
| JEL: | I1 I31 O1 O15 O57 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13317&r=hap |
| By: | Sen Wang; C. Tyler DesRoches; Lili Sun; Brad Stennes; Bill Wilson; G. Cornelis van Kooten |
| Abstract: | This paper has three main objectives: (1) to investigate whether the four-quadrant approach introduced by Maini (2003) reveals a useful typology for grouping countries by GDP and forest cover per capita, (2) to determine if the framework can enhance our understanding of the relationship between forest cover and GDP per capita, and (3) to investigate why countries in the four-quadrant world occupy different quadrants, and to determine the principal factors affecting country-movement across and within the individual quadrants. The examination reveals that countries can be classified into four broad categories, and that GDP and forest cover per capita have a low but consistent level of negative association. After regressing economic, institutional, social capital and other variables on a country’s occupancy and movement in the four-quadrant world, the results suggest that countries in each quadrant share different characteristics and that factors underlying country-movement varies according to the quadrant being observed. Overall, countries with less corruption and higher education are likely to experience increases in both forest cover and GDP per capita, while countries exporting a significant proportion of forest products have a reduced probability of increasing both variables. |
| Keywords: | Economic well-being, forest cover, institutions, corruption, education |
| JEL: | G00 I20 Q23 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rep:wpaper:2007-01&r=hap |