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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2017‒02‒19
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Ufuk Akcigit; Angus Deaton; Alexandra Roulet |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyze the relationship between turnover-driven growth and subjective well-being. Our model of innovation-led growth and unemployment predicts that: (i) the effect of creative destruction on expected individual welfare should be unambiguously positive if we control for unemployment, less so if we do not; (ii) job creation has a positive and job destruction has a negative impact on well-being; (iii) job destruction has a less negative impact in areas with more generous unemployment insurance policies; and (iv) job creation has a more positive effect on individuals that are more forward-looking. The empirical analysis using cross sectional MSA (metropolitan statistical area)-level and individual-level data provide empirical support to these predictions. |
| JEL: | I31 J63 J65 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:69228&r=hap |
| By: | Huffman, Sonya; Rizov, Marian |
| Abstract: | The goal of this study is to improve our understanding of life satisfaction overall and in Russia in particular by examining the impacts of diet on lifetime satisfaction and correcting for reverse causality using 1994–2005 data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS). Do people with better diets report higher levels of lifestyle satisfaction?Results suggest that calories, fat, and protein consumption, and a more diverse diet have a positive and statistically significant effect on life satisfaction levels of the Russian people. In addition, living in a region with higher per capita income increases life satisfaction of the citizens.While living in a rural area, having health problems, and having young children affect negatively and statistically significantly individual life satisfaction in Russia. Better understanding of the drivers of subjective well-being in Russia will assist in government decision-making processes, including the allocation of scarce resources and the design elements of politics. |
| Date: | 2017–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:201702090800001021&r=hap |
| By: | Berlin, Martin (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University); Fors, Filip (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | - |
| Keywords: | - |
| Date: | 2017–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2017_001&r=hap |
| By: | Seymour, Gregory; Floro, Maria S. |
| Abstract: | Despite increases in women’s employment, significant gender disparity exists in the time men and women spend on household and care work. Understanding how social expectations govern gender roles and contribute to this disparity is essential for designing policies that effectively promote a more equitable household division of labor. In this study, we examine how a woman’s identity may affect the trade-offs between the time she spends on household and care work and her well-being, using an analytical framework we develop based on the work of Akerlof and Kranton. Analyzing data from rural Bangladesh, we find that longer hours spent on household work are associated with lower levels of subjective well-being among women who disagree with patriarchal notions of gender roles, while the opposite is true for women who agree with patriarchal notions of gender roles. Importantly, this pattern holds only when a woman strongly identifies with patriarchal or egalitarian notions of gender role. |
| Keywords: | gender, women, time study, households, gender analysis, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1580&r=hap |
| By: | Wunder, Christoph |
| Abstract: | This study uses subjective measures of well-being to analyze how workers perceive working hours mismatch. Our particular interest is in the question of whether workers perceive hours of underemployment differently from hours of overemployment. Previous evidence on this issue is ambiguous. We call attention to the level of well-being in the absence of hours mismatch that serves as a reference state for comparison purposes and to the consequences of restrictive functional form assumptions. Using panel data from Australia and Germany, this study estimates the relationship between working hours mismatch and well-being as a bivariate smooth function of desired hours and mismatch hours by tensor product p-splines. The results indicate that well-being is highest in the absence of hours mismatch. In general, the perception of overemployment is statistically significantly different from the perception of underemployment in both countries. In Australia, workers tolerate some underemployment, as their well-being tends to be unaltered in the presence of short hours of underemployment. However, the marginal loss from underemployment appears to be larger than that from overemployment once the mismatch exceeds approximately ten hours. In Germany, on the contrary, underemployment is clearly more detrimental for well-being than overemployment. German males with preferences for full-time hours hardly respond to overemployment. |
| JEL: | I31 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145544&r=hap |
| By: | Scheffel, Juliane; Zhang, Yiwei |
| Abstract: | The ageing population resulting from the one-child policy and the massive internal migration in China pose major challenges to elderly care in rural areas where elderly support is based on a traditional inter-generational family support mechanism. We use data from the first two waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to examine how migration of an adult child affects the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind. We identify the effects by applying fixed-effects and instrumental variable regressions which both identify the effect based on different sources of variation. We find that migration significantly reduces overall life-satisfaction by 8.8 percent and leads to an 8.7 (12 percent) percent higher probability of suffering from depressive symptoms (loneliness). Emotional health outcomes drastically deteriorate with reduced emotional support. In contrast to other developing countries, remittances cannot buffer the negative effects of emotional health. As emotional health is a key determinant of the overall health status, our findings have significant impacts for rural areas. |
| JEL: | I15 J14 O15 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145663&r=hap |
| By: | Bünnings, Christian; Avdic, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Indirect psychological effects induced by crime are likely to contribute significantly to the total costs of crime beyond the financial costs of direct victimization. Using detailed crime statistics for the whole of Germany and linking them to individual-level mental health information from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze whether local crime rates affect the mental health of residents. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in local violent crime rates significantly decreases individual mental well-being among residents by, on average, one percent. Smaller effects are found for property and total crime rates. Results are insensitive to migration and not isolated to urban areas, but are rather driven by less densely populated regions. In contrast to previous literature on vulnerability to crime, we find that men, more educated and singles react more to variation in violent crime rates in their neighborhoods. One potential explanation could be that those who are more fearful of crime have developed better coping strategies and, hence, react less to changes in crime. |
| JEL: | C23 I18 K42 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145512&r=hap |