|
on Economics of Happiness |
|
Issue of 2015‒10‒25
three papers chosen by |
| By: | O'Donnell, Gus (House of Lords); Oswald, Andrew J. (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Governments are becoming interested in the concept of human well-being and how truly to assess it. As an alternative to traditional economic measures, some nations have begun to collect information on citizens' happiness, life satisfaction, and other psychological scores. Yet how could such data actually be used? This paper is a cautious attempt to contribute to thinking on that question. It suggests a possible weighting method to calculate first-order changes in society's well-being, discusses some of the potential principles of democratic 'well-being policy', and (as an illustrative example) reports data on how sub-samples of citizens believe feelings might be weighted. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction, anxiety, happiness, national well-being, mental health |
| JEL: | I31 I38 Z18 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9401&r=all |
| By: | Tavares, Aida Isabel |
| Abstract: | The relationship between happiness and physical activity is revisited using cross country data in an exploratory analysis. The estimated results show that the countries with lower values in the happiness index account for lower levels of physical activity, or, higher levels of inactivity/sedentarism. Moreover, it is found that the most recent data show that the more antidepressants people take in a country, the higher the happiness index. The main contribution of this note is providing important clues for future research about happiness, physical activity and antidepressants, a potential conditional factor of the measurement of happiness in a country. |
| Keywords: | happiness, physical activity, sedentarism, antidepressants, cross-country analysis |
| JEL: | I10 I31 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:67371&r=all |
| By: | Anna Mironova (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relation between trust as the element of social capital and individual subjective life satisfaction. It answers the question of whether trustful people are happier than suspicious people. Using the concept of social capital, we consider three main types of trust: general, institutional and social. The article estimates the level of trust in Russia using data from value research in two federal districts in Russia. This research was conducted by the Centre for Comparative Social Research in summer 2012. The main hypothesis, that there a positive relationship between the level of trust and subjective life satisfaction, was tested using the method of structural equation modelling. |
| Keywords: | social capital, trust, subjective life satisfaction. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:42psy2015&r=all |