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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2012‒12‒06
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Tindara Addabbo; Marco Fuscaldo; Anna Maccagnan |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the definition of the capability of living a healthy life with special reference to the Italian context. The increasing ageing of Italian population and the higher likelihood for elderly to experience poorer health conditions (Addabbo, Picchio; 2010; Addabbo, Chiarolanza, Fuscaldo, Pirotti, 2010) lead us to focus especially on elderly population and gender differences in the measurement of the development of this capability. Institutional as well family and individual conversion factors are analysed in their interaction with the observed development of the capability of living a healthy life taking a gender perspective. To measure the latter we use both self assessed health status and objective gerontological measures of health conditions available in the Italian sample of the Survey of Health, Ageing, Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The self-completion questionaire, that is submitted only to a part of the whole SHARE sample, allows to gain important information on the household characteristics and in particular on the sharing of different responsibilities within the household (doing the cleaning, caring for children and elderlies, earning money etc.). Part of this information is also retrospective. This allows us to extend our analysis on the measurement of individual current achievement in the capability taking into account how conversion factors can interact with the development of the capability since it allows a long term analysis of their effect. |
| Keywords: | health |
| JEL: | I14 J14 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:cappmo:0099&r=hap |
| By: | Weiss, Alexander (University of Edinburgh); King, James E. (University of Arizona); Inoue-Murayama, Miho (Kyoto University); Matsuzawa, Tetsuro (Kyoto University); Oswald, Andrew J. (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Recently, economists and behavioral scientists have studied the pattern of human well-being over the lifespan. In dozens of countries, and for a large range of well-being measures, including happiness and mental health, well-being is high in youth, falls to a nadir in midlife, and rises again in old age. The reasons for this U-shape are still unclear. Present theories emphasize sociological and economic forces. In this study we show that a similar U-shape exists in 508 great apes (two samples of chimpanzees and one sample of orangutans) whose well-being was assessed by keepers familiar with the individual apes. This U-shaped pattern or ‘midlife crisis’ emerges with or without use of parametric methods. Our results imply that human well-being’s curved shape is not uniquely human and that, while it may be partly explained by aspects of human life and society, its origins may lie partly in the biology we share with closely related great apes. These findings have implications across scientific and social-scientific disciplines and potentially in identifying ways to enhance the well-being of humans and apes. |
| Keywords: | aging, primate, satisfaction, evolution, affect |
| JEL: | I31 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7009&r=hap |
| By: | Akay, Alpaslan (IZA); Bargain, Olivier (University of Aix-Marseille II); Dolls, Mathias (IZA); Neumann, Dirk (IZA); Peichl, Andreas (IZA); Siegloch, Sebastian (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a first empirical investigation of how labor taxation (income and payroll taxes) affects individuals' well-being. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in tax rules over time and across demographic groups using 26 years of German panel data. We find that the tax effect on subjective well-being is significant and positive when controlling for income net of taxes. This interesting result is robust to numerous specification checks. It is consistent with several possible channels through which taxes affect welfare including public goods, insurance, redistributive taste and tax morale. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being, taxation, public goods |
| JEL: | H21 H41 I38 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6999&r=hap |