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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2014‒07‒13
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Olivier Bargain (Aix-Marseille University (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS); Jinan Zeidan (Aix-Marseille University (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effect of height on earnings, occupational choices and a subjective measure of well-being among Indonesian men. We explore the extent to which height captures the effects of human capital endowments set before entry on the labor market. Cognitive skills, co-determined with stature early in life, do not explain much of the height earnings premium directly. Yet, human capital more broadly, including cognition, educational attainment and other factors related to parental investments and background characteristics, explains around half of the height premium and does so through occupational sorting. Indeed, taller workers tend to have more education, and educated workers tend to work in more lucrative occupations that require brain and social skills, not brawn. The unexplained share of the height earnings premium reflects other labor market advantages of taller workers, including psycho-social dimensions. We also find a height premium in happiness, half of which simply accounts for the educational and earnings advantages of taller workers. |
| Keywords: | height, cognitive skills, physical skills, childhood conditions, earnings, occupation, happiness |
| Date: | 2014–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1429&r=hap |
| By: | Marie Poprawe (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland); Christian Krekel (DIW Berlin, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of local crime on well-being in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a novel data set constructed from official police crime statistics, covering both counties and urban districts for the time period between 1994 and 2012. We find that local area crime has a signicantly negative impact on life satisfaction, makes residents worry more frequently, and worry more about crime in Germany. In particular, a 1% increase in the crime frequency ratio results in a 0.043 standard deviation decrease in life satisfaction. This effect is driven almost exclusively by violent crimes, while property crimes and other crimes have no significant impact on well-being. |
| Keywords: | Crime, Well-Being, Germany |
| JEL: | I31 K42 R50 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kof:wpskof:14-358&r=hap |
| By: | Martin Binder; Alex Coad |
| Abstract: | Unemployment has been robustly shown to strongly decrease subjective well-being (or "happiness"). In the present paper, we use panel quantile regression techniques in order to analyze to what extent the negative impact of unemployment varies along the subjective well-being distribution. In our analysis of British Household Panel Survey data (1996-2008) we find that, over the quantiles of our subjective well-being variable, individuals with high well-being suffer less from becoming unemployed. A similar but stronger effect of unemployment is found for a broad mental well-being variable (GHQ-12). For happy and mentally stable individuals, it seems their higher well-being acts like a safety net when they become unemployed. We explore these findings by examining the heterogeneous unemployment effects over the quantiles of satisfaction with various life domains. |
| Keywords: | Subjective Well-being; Unemployment; Quantile Analysis; Heterogeneity; British Household Panel Survey; Domain Satisfaction |
| JEL: | I31 J01 J64 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_808&r=hap |
| By: | Alex Coad; Martin Binder |
| Abstract: | Work and life satisfaction depends on a number of pecuniary and nonpecuniary factors at the workplace and determines these in turn. We analyze these causal linkages using a structural vector autoregression approach for a sample of the German working populace collected from 1984 to 2008, finding that workplace autonomy plays an important causal role in determining well-being. |
| Keywords: | Subjective Well-Being; Job Satisfaction; Structural VAR; German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) |
| JEL: | C33 I12 I31 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_809&r=hap |
| By: | Grimani, Katerina |
| Abstract: | The starting point of this paper is the idea that individuals are characterized by hierarchical behavior. The theory of hierarchical needs implies that individuals have a priority approach to psychological well-being. This means that the most important needs must be satisfied first before the secondary needs come into the picture. The theory can also offer additional insights to the research field which investigates the relationship between labor earnings and psychological well-being levels. The paper uses the 5th European Working Conditions Survey (2010) which contains data from 33 European countries and Turkey. In the proposed models, psychological well-being and work related stress are placed as the dependent variables and labor earnings as the independent variable. The ordinary least squares (OLS) and ordered logistic regressions are the main statistical tools of the work. The empirical results indicate that there is a strong positive relationship between labor earnings and psychological well-being for low paid group, and a non-significant relationship between labor earnings and psychological well-being for well paid group. This result supports the presence of hierarchical behaviour. In addition, the labor earnings for low paid group show an insignificant effect on employees’ work related stress, while a highly significant positive effect on the work related stress of well-paid group is implied, hilighting the stress of higher status hypothesis. The models also contains personal variables such as gender, age, educational level, type of occupation, working hours per week, country dummy variables and employment status. The relationship of these variables to psychological well-being and work-related stress levels is also examined. Finally, there is a comparison of the empirical findings to results in the relevant literature. |
| Keywords: | Psychological well-being, Work related stress, Hierarchical needs, Stress of higher status hypothesis |
| JEL: | I0 I10 J01 |
| Date: | 2014–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:57098&r=hap |
| By: | Baaren, Terence; Galloway, Cornelia |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this article is to uncover the relationship of job satisfaction factors on the productivity level of operating core of manufacturing firm in textile mill. The theoretical approach that has been in this study to examine job satisfaction is Hertzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) has been used. With the confidence interval of 95% and after analyzing the data and computing the correlation in SPSS software, researcher got the significance value of 0.043. The value of 0.043 is significant at 5% significance level. So therefore the researcher has rejected the null hypothesis and accepted the alternative hypothesis. Hence the results showed that there is a relationship between satisfaction factors and productivity. |
| Keywords: | Productivity |
| JEL: | M11 M16 |
| Date: | 2014–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:57186&r=hap |
| By: | Fernando Prieto (Centro de Referencia de Sostenibilidad y Cambio Climático); José Antonio Nieto Solís (Departamento de Economía Aplicada I. Facultad CC. Económicas y Empresariales. Univ. Complutense de Madrid. Campus de Somosaguas, s/n. 28223 POZUELO DE ALARCÓN (MADRID).) |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo calcula por primera vez dos índices sintéticos para las Comunidades Autónomas españolas: uno de bienestar y otro de sostenibilidad. El punto de partida ha sido el Índice de la Buena Vida (Better Life Index, de la OCDE) y un Índice de Sostenibilidad (Happy Planet Index, basado en la huella ecológica). Los resultados muestran que no existe una clara correspondencia entre PIB regional, bienestar y sostenibilidad, y reflejan también la influencia negativa del impacto ecológico en los niveles de bienestar. El interés de este análisis preliminar es valorar de un modo más completo el progreso de las sociedades y contribuir a diseñar y evaluar políticas que mejoren el bienestar y la sostenibilidad. |
| Abstract: | This work estimates, for the first time, two synthetic indexes for the Spanish regions (Comunidades Autónomas): well-being and sustainability. The starting point has been the Better Life Index (OECD and own calculations) and the Index of Sustainability (Happy Planet Index and ecological footprint). The results show that there are no clear correspondences between regional GDP, well-being and sustainability, and also reflect the negative influence of ecological impacts on well-being levels. The interest of this preliminary analysis is rating in a more complete way the progress of societies, and contribute to design and evaluate policies that improve the well-being and sustainability. |
| Keywords: | Well-being, Sustainability, Spanish regions, Ecological impact, Happiness, Synthetic indexes, Bienestar, Sostenibilidad, Comunidades Autónomas, Buena vida, Impacto ecológico, Índices sintéticos. |
| JEL: | I31 Q51 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doctra:14-01&r=hap |