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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2018‒06‒18
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Hande Inanc |
| Abstract: | The negative impact of unemployment on individuals and its spillover to spouses is widely documented. However, we have a gap in our knowledge when it comes to the similar consequences of temporary employment. |
| Keywords: | temporary work, unemployment, subjective well-being, gender, couple dynamics |
| JEL: | J |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:3ba9073c78034d0f864a7527e15bf465&r=hap |
| By: | John F. Helliwell; Hugh Shiplett; Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new public-use dataset for community-level life satisfaction in Canada, based on more than 400,000 observations from the Canadian Community Health Surveys and the General Social Surveys. The country is divided into 1215 similarly sampled geographic regions, using natural, built, and administrative boundaries. A cross-validation exercise suggests that our choice of minimum sampling thresholds approximately maximizes the predictive power of our estimates. Our procedure reveals robust differences in life satisfaction between and across urban and rural communities. We then match the life satisfaction data with a range of key census variables to explore ways in which lives differ in the most and least happy communities. The data presented here are useful on their own to study community-level variation, and can also be used to provide contextual variables for multi-level modelling with individual life satisfaction data set in a community context. |
| JEL: | C81 I31 R12 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24592&r=hap |
| By: | Krekel, Christian; Zerrahn, Alexander |
| Abstract: | Throughout the world, governments foster the deployment of wind power to mitigate negative externalities of conventional electricity generation, notably {CO2} emissions. Wind turbines, however, are not free of externalities themselves, particularly interference with landscape aesthetics. We quantify these negative externalities using the life satisfaction approach. To this end, we combine household data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) with a novel panel dataset on over 20,000 installations. Based on geographical coordinates and construction dates, we establish causality in a difference-in-differences design. Matching techniques drawing on exogenous weather data and geographical locations of residence ensure common trend behaviour. We show that the construction of wind turbines close to households exerts significant negative external effects on residential well-being, although they seem both spatially and temporally limited, being restricted to about 4,000 metres around households and decaying after five years at the latest. Robustness checks, including view shed analyses based on digital terrain models and placebo regressions, confirm our results. |
| Keywords: | SOEP |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2017–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:68708&r=hap |
| By: | Simonetta Longhi (University of Reading); Alita Nandi (University of Essex); Mark Bryan (University of Sheffield); Sara Connolly (University of East Anglia); Cigdem Gedikli (University of Hertfordshire) |
| Abstract: | Many studies have shown that there is a general tendency for men’s subjective wellbeing to be more badly affected by unemployment when compared to women, although the extent varies across countries. The existing literature notes the gender differences and offers possible explanations, but does not formally compare competing hypotheses. We analyse whether gender differences in life satisfaction associated with the experience of unemployment can be attributed to degrees of specialisation in the labour market, differences in the types of work undertaken by men and women, differences in personality traits, work identity or gender norms. We find that it is not all, but some, women who suffer less than men when experiencing a transition into unemployment. The experience of unemployment for women is differentiated by pay, work identity and, most powerfully, gender attitudes. |
| Keywords: | gender attitudes, life satisfaction, unemployment, wellbeing |
| JEL: | I31 J16 J64 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2018007&r=hap |