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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2013‒08‒10
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Gotoh, Reiko; Yoshihara, Naoki |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to examine the possibility of a social choice rule to implement a social policy for “securing basic well-being for all.” For this purpose, the paper introduces a new scheme of social choice, called a social relation function (SRF), which associates to each profile of individual well-being appraisals and each profile of group-evaluations a reflexive and transitive binary relation over the set of social policies. As a part of the domains of SRFs, the available class of group evaluations is constrained by the following three conditions: Basic Well-being Condition, Restricted Monotonicity, and Refrain Condition. Furthermore, two axioms, the non-negative response (NR) and the weak Pareto condition (WP), are introduced as the two basic condititions of SRFs. NR demands giving priority to the evaluations of disadvantage groups, while treating them as formally equal relative to each other. WP requires treating impartially the well-being appraisals of all individuals. In conclusion, this paper shows that, under some reasonable assumptions, there exists a SRF which satisfies NR and WP. |
| Keywords: | basic well-being, individual well-being appraisals, social relation functions |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:591&r=hap |
| By: | BRESSER-PEREIRA, Luiz Carlos |
| Abstract: | The Capitalist Revolution was the period of the transition from the ancient societies to capitalism; it was a long transition that began in the north of Italy, in the 14th century, and for the first time got completed in England, in the second part of the 18th century, with the formation of the nation state and the Industrial Revolution; it is a major rupture, which divided the history of mankind between a period where empires or civilizations prospered and then fell into decadence and disappeared, and a period of ingrained economic development and long-term improvement of standards of living. Since then the different peoples are engaged in the social construction of their nations and their states; since then, they are experiencing economic development, because capitalism is essentially dynamic; since then they are struggling for the political objectives that they historically defined for themselves from that revolution: security, freedom, economic well-being, social justice, and protection of the environment. |
| Date: | 2013–08–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:326&r=hap |
| By: | Riyana Miranti; Yogi Vidyattama; Erick Hansnata; Rebecca Cassells; Alan Duncan |
| Abstract: | As one of the world’s largest emerging economies, Indonesia has experienced rapid economic growth and substantial reduction of poverty over the past three decades, particularly prior to the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis. After the crisis, Indonesia entered a new development phase that saw the fall of the Suharto government and new governance which moved highly centralised policies and powers towards a decentralised process. This research report analyses economic and social patterns and trends of poverty and inequality in Indonesia with a particular focus on the decentralisation period from 2001 to 2010.The Indonesian political and economic environment has changed significantly during this period and this had implications for individual wellbeing, regional economic prosperity and national economic growth. The report finds that in general, absolute poverty rates have continued to decline during the decentralisation period although the reduction has not been as strong as it was prior to the Asian economic crisis. In contrast, consumption inequality has increased during the same period. New estimates of growth and inequality elasticity of poverty suggest that this rising inequality has been offsetting the positive benefits of consumption growth on poverty.<BR>En tant que l'une des plus grandes économies émergentes du monde, l'Indonésie a connu une croissance économique rapide et une réduction substantielle de la pauvreté au cours des trois dernières décennies, en particulier avant la crise financière asiatique de 1997-1998. Après cette crise, l'Indonésie est entrée dans une nouvelle phase de développement qui a vu la chute du gouvernement Suharto, et qui a connu une nouvelle gouvernance délaçant des politiques et des pouvoirs fortement centralisés vers un processus décentralisé. Ce rapport analyse les caractéristiques et tendances économiques et sociales de la pauvreté et de l'inégalité en Indonésie, avec un accent particulier sur la période de décentralisation de 2001 à 2010. L’environnement politique et économique indonésien a considérablement changé au cours de cette période. Cela a eu des répercussions sur le bien-être individuel, la prospérité économique régionale et à la croissance économique nationale. Le rapport constate qu'en général, les taux de pauvreté absolue ont continué à baisser au cours de la période de décentralisation, mais la baisse n'a pas été aussi forte qu'elle l'avait été avant la crise économique asiatique. En revanche, les inégalités (mesurées par la consommation) ont augmenté durant la même période. Des nouvelles estimations de la croissance et de l'élasticité de l'inégalité de la pauvreté suggèrent que cette inégalité croissante a compensé les effets positifs de la croissance de la consommation sur la pauvreté. |
| Keywords: | poverty, inequality, regional disparities, poverty alleviation strategy |
| JEL: | I32 I38 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–07–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:148-en&r=hap |
| By: | Katrin Rehdanz (IFW Kiel); Welsch Heinz (University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics); Daiju Naritaa; Toshihiro Okubod |
| Abstract: | Following a major earthquake off the Pacific coast of Japan, a tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three reactors in Fukushima, causing a major nuclear accident on 11 March 2011. Based on a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach we use panel data for 5,979 individuals interviewed in Japan before and after the accident to analyze the effect of the accident on people’s subjective well-being. Our main hypotheses are that this effect declines with distance to the place of the event but also with distance to other nuclear power plants. To test these hypotheses, we use Geographical Information Systems to merge the well-being data with information on respondents’ distance to the Fukushima nuclear plant and on their proximity to nuclear power stations in general. Our empirical results suggest the existence of significant well-being effects of the combined event of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that are proportional to proximity to the Fukushima site being equivalent to up to 72 percent of annual household income. We find no evidence for increased nation-wide worry about the presence of nuclear power plants near people’s place of residence. |
| Keywords: | Fukushima, subjective well-being, nuclear disaster, difference-in-differences, willingness to pay |
| JEL: | D62 Q51 Q54 I31 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:old:dpaper:358&r=hap |
| By: | Aristovnik, Aleksander; Jaklič, Ksenja |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the study of older workers’ job satisfaction as a factor that, combined with other personal and job-related factors, can significantly influence the decision to postpone retirement when this decision is in the hands of an individual. Starting from the fact that the employment rate of older workers in Slovenia in 2011 was the lowest in the EU, the article aims to establish the level of older workers’ job satisfaction in Slovenia compared to the EU, analyse its dimensions, its specifics related to age, gender, sector of economic activities and type of profession, as well as ascertain what determines it the most. A statistical analysis of the results of the Fifth European Working Conditions Survey of 2010 reveals that Slovenia ranks 15th among the EU member states in terms of older workers’ job satisfaction, thus lagging behind the EU average. While Slovenian older workers, the same as their European counterparts, are most satisfied with doing useful work and the least with their prospects for career advancement, a comparison with other EU member states shows that they are relatively dissatisfied with working conditions, salary and adequacy of the motivation to give one’s best performance, and relatively satisfied with doing useful work and with their colleagues. The analysis also shows that the level of older workers’ job satisfaction in Slovenia is determined most by their satisfaction with the adequacy of the motivation to give one’s best performance. |
| Keywords: | older workers, job satisfaction, employment, labour market participation, EU, Slovenia |
| JEL: | J14 J20 J26 J28 |
| Date: | 2013–08–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48809&r=hap |