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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2011‒05‒30
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Pischke, Jörn-Steffen (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | There is a well-established positive correlation between life-satisfaction measures and income in individual level cross-sectional data. This paper attempts to provide some evidence on whether this correlation reflects causality running from money to happiness. I use industry wage differentials as instruments for income. This is based on the idea that at least part of these differentials are due to rents, and part of the pattern of industry affiliations of individuals is random. To probe the validity of these assumptions, I compare estimates for life satisfaction with those for job satisfaction, present fixed effects estimates, and present estimates for married women using their husbands' industry as the instrument. All these specifications paint a fairly uniform picture across three different data sets. IV estimates are similar to the OLS estimates suggesting that most of the association of income and well-being is causal. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction, well-being |
| JEL: | D1 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5705&r=hap |
| By: | Marco Giovanni Brambilla; Alessandra Michelangeli; Eugenio Peluso (DISCE, Università Cattolica) |
| Abstract: | We merge contributions from the New Urban Economics and inequality measurement to assess quality of life (QOL) in a given city. We take the point of view of a city planner in favor of an even accessibility to amenities within the city. Instead of the average value of amenities computed in the Roback (1982) QOL index, our index captures the value of its multidimensional "certainty equivalent". We apply this methodology to derive a QOL index for the city of Milan. |
| Keywords: | Urban quality of life, amenities, hedonic prices, inequality index, just city. |
| JEL: | D63 H4 R1 R2 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie3:ief0101&r=hap |
| By: | Jörn-Steffen Pischke |
| Abstract: | There is a well-established positive correlation between life-satisfaction measures and income in individual level cross-sectional data. This paper attempts to provide some evidence on whether this correlation reflects causality running from money to happiness. I use industry wage differentials as instruments for income. This is based on the idea that at least part of these differentials is due to rents, and part of the pattern of industry affiliations of individuals is random. To probe the validity of these assumptions, I compare estimates for life satisfaction with those for job satisfaction, present fixed effects estimates, and present estimates for married women using their husbands' industry as the instrument. All these specifications paint a fairly uniform picture across three different data sets. IV estimates are similar to the OLS estimates suggesting that most of the association of income and well-being is causal. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction, well-being |
| JEL: | D1 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1051&r=hap |
| By: | Sabatini, Fabio |
| Abstract: | We test the relationship between happiness and self-rated health in Italy. The analysis relies on a unique dataset collected through the administration of a questionnaire to a representative sample (n = 817) of the population of the Italian Province of Trento in March 2011. Based on probit regressions, instrumental variables estimates and structural equations modelling, we find that happiness is strongly correlated with perceived good health, after controlling for a number of relevant socio-economic phenomena. Health inequalities based on income, work status and education are relatively contained in respect to the rest of Italy. As expected, this scales down the role of social capital. |
| Keywords: | cooperative enterprises; happiness; health; instrumental variables; Italy; life satisfaction; non-profit; social capital; structural equations modelling |
| JEL: | I12 I31 I18 L31 C35 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–05–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:30948&r=hap |
| By: | Oded Galor |
| Abstract: | Conventional wisdom about the relationship between income distribution and economic development has been subjected to dramatic transformations in the past century. While classical economists advanced the hypothesis that inequality is beneficial for growth, the neoclassical paradigm dismissed the classical hypothesis and suggested that income distribution has limited role in the growth process. A metamorphosis in these perspectives has taken place in the past two decades. Theory and subsequent empirical evidence have demonstrated that income distribution has a significant impact on human capital formation and the development process. In early stages of industrialization, as physical capital accumulation was a prime engine of growth, inequality enhanced the process of development by channeling resources towards individuals whose marginal propensity to save is higher. In later stages of development, however, as human capital has become a main engine of growth, equality, in the presence of credit constraints, has stimulated human capital formation and growth. Moreover, unequal distribution of land has been a hurdle for economic development. While industrialists have had an incentive to support education policies that foster human capital formation, landowners, whose interests lay in the reduction of the mobility of their labor force, have favored policies that deprived the masses of education. |
| JEL: | O11 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17058&r=hap |
| By: | OSHIO Takashi |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to investigate how family and social relations affect the life satisfaction levels of elderly men and women in Japan. We used micro-data from 3,063 Japanese elderly adults (1,565 men and 1,498 women) collected from a sample in the first-wave of the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), a survey compatible with HRS in the United States and SHARE in Europe. This study found that life satisfaction is more closely associated with family and social relations for women than for men, after controlling for socioeconomic, health, and other factors. Women are more sensitive than men to coresidence and contact with family members, especially parents-in-law, as well as to social relations with others in the community, while men become much more depressed than women following a divorce or widowhood.<br />Observed associations between each factor and life satisfaction are largely consistent with those separately reported by preceding studies. However, this analysis compared the relative importance of each factor and its gender difference, contributing to a more comprehensive and subjective understanding of the well-being of elderly people. |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:11051&r=hap |