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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2014‒06‒07
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Frédéric Teulon |
| Abstract: | At first sight, economic relations have nothing to do with morals. However, while economics claims to be a science, in other science disciplines, the question of morality would never arise (we do not ask if the physics of particles is moral or not, or if the composition of a particular molecule obeys ethical principles...). The present analysis is largely based on the writings of Bernard Mandeville who drew attention to the ambiguous relationship between vice and virtue. We argued that economic relations have nothing to do with morals. However, the paradox is that the economy cannot function without a certain form of morality. The economy is made up of individuals who are moral beings endowed with the ability to distinguish between good and bad. The generalised practice of vice, as rehabilitated by Mandeville, obviously has its limitations. The search for personal satisfaction is restrained by the need to take other people into consideration. While the economy and capitalism may be amoral, individuals are not. |
| Keywords: | Economics, Ethics, Economics of welfare. |
| Date: | 2014–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-307&r=hap |
| By: | Pedersen, Peder J. (Aarhus University); Schmidt, Torben Dall (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | The literature on Happiness and Subjective Well-Being (SWB) has been dominated by studies of the impact from income and labour market status - and the impact on happiness from changes in these determinants. It seems obvious to expect an impact from non-economic factors as well. In the present paper we focus on the eventual impact on SWB from having children. The dominant result in the rather few studies until now is the finding of no – or even a negative – impact on subjective well being following birth of a child. We focus on the impact from having children using two very big panel data sets. The first is the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) with data collected over 8 annual waves from 1994 to 2001 in 15 EU member countries. Observations are available for up to 15 countries with big differences in fertility levels, child care institutions and labour force participation for married women. At the same time, the ECHP data contains a lot of relevant demographic and labour market background variables to be included in the econometric analyses of the SWB impact from children. The second data set is The German Socio Economic Panel (GSOEP). Like the ECHP, the GSOEP data contains many relevant background factors. This presents a unique opportunity to combine the cross country perspective in the ECHP data with the possibility presented by the GSOEP of following the impact from giving birth over a significantly longer period including approximately 11.000 households. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being, life events, panel data |
| JEL: | D1 I31 J13 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8207&r=hap |
| By: | Bernal, Noelia (Universidad de Piura); Carpio, Miguel A. (Universidad de Piura); Klein, Tobias J. (Tilburg University) |
| Abstract: | Many developing countries have recently increased health insurance coverage at a large scale. While it is commonly believed that this has positive effects, to date, it is not well understood through which channels health insurance coverage contributes to the well-being of individuals. More generally, the effects are usually not quantified at the individual level. There are two main reasons for this. First, we lack detailed data on health care utilization and health outcomes, and second, it is not easy to control for selection into insurance. The second problem means that a regression of utilization or outcome measures on insurance coverage will yield biased results and will not estimate the causal effects of health insurance. In this paper, we make progress in both directions. We use rich survey data to evaluate the impact of access to the Peruvian Social Health Insurance called "Seguro Integral de Salud" for individuals outside the formal labor market on a variety of measures for health care utilization, preventive care, health expenditures, and health indicators. We address the second concern by exploiting a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. A household is eligible for the program if a welfare index that is calculated from a number of variables is below a specific threshold. We base our analysis on a natural experiment that is generated by variation in the index around the threshold. We interpret our results through the lens of a simple model. As expected, and in contrast to studies for a number of other countries, we find strong effects of insurance coverage on measures of health care utilization, such as visiting a doctor, receiving medication and medical analysis. The program does not strongly incentivice individuals or health care providers to invest into preventive care. In line with this, in general, we find no effects of insurance coverage on preventive care. The only exceptions to this are our findings that, controlling for selection into insurance coverage, women of fertile age with insurance are more likely to receive pregnancy care and that insured individuals are more likely to be vaccinated. This is in line with the stark decrease in maternal and child mortality that was observed after the program was introduced. As for health care expenditures, we generally find positive effects on the mean and the variability. We complement these findings with quantile treatment effect estimates that show increases at the high end of the distribution. Our interpretation is that insured individuals are encouraged by health care professionals to undertake important treatments and pay for this themselves. At the same time, we find no clear effects on health outcomes at the micro level. |
| Keywords: | public health insurance, informal sector, health care utilization, health, regression discontinuity design |
| JEL: | I13 O12 O17 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8213&r=hap |
| By: | Serdar Türkeli (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we re-construct the sphere of European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) with respect to empirical evidence collected from Web of Science and systematically meta-analysed. This analysis provides us the dynamics of the ENP knowledge asset in terms of stock and flow in temporal, spatial (geographical), organisational and contextual dimensions. The same meta-analysis is applied to Quality of Local Governance (QoLG) and dynamics of the re-constructed sphere of Quality of Local Governance is analysed, with cross-comparison to the ENP sphere. The main result indicates the sphere of Environment, Energy and Ecology (EEE) form the main sectoral gateway between the ENP and QoLG in a multi-level (international, national, regional) setting. We constructed our conceptual framework based on these evidence bases that gathered from spheres of the ENP and QoLG with comparison to analysis of temporal evolution of governance studies, and checked for theoretical debates of Bureaucratic Planning, Public Choice Theory and Structuralist Critiques, which are shown that incomplete to grasp this emerging EEE sphere. Although promising, New Regionalism concept is discussed with the condition of those current or potentially future developmentalist tendencies in the European Neighbourhood with respect to triangulated tensions between economic, social and environmental development. We listed and concluded that technological and social innovation are the vital enablers to activate this EEE Bridge in the governance of a foursquare quality of life agenda, with enhanced information and finance-based intelligent instruments interactive between i) European Neighbourhood Policy, ii) Open Method of ‘’Neighbourhoods’’ Coordination, iii) Smart ‘’Cross-Continental Regions’’ Specialisation, and iv) European ‘’Adaptive, Synchronous’’ Strategic Energy Technology Plan (ASSET-Plan). |
| Keywords: | European Neighbourhood policy, governance, regional policy |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:stpswp:1302&r=hap |
| By: | Alberto Montagnoli (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, UK); Mirko Moro (Division of Economics, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, UK) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether banking crises affect individuals' subjective wellbeing (SWB) in eighteen European countries between 1980-2011. We address the potential endogeneity between banking crises and SWB by exploiting spatial and temporal differences in banking crises episodes. We find negative, robust, pronounced and highly persistent effects for events prior to 2007. The 2007-2008 crash lowered SWB in countries that had previously experienced a credit boom. Individuals living in regions hosting financial centres suffer bigger losses. Yet, the impact is similar across socio-demographic groups. These effects extend beyond changes in macroeconomic factors, wealth and fiscal policies: they are hidden psychological costs. |
| Keywords: | well-being; happiness; financial crises; banking crises; difference-in-differences; uncertainty |
| JEL: | D1 E44 G21 H0 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2014010&r=hap |