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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2018‒10‒01
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Sun, Yu; You, Wen; Davis, George C. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Consumer/Household Economics |
| Date: | 2017–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea17:259211&r=hap |
| By: | DECANCQ Koen, (University of Antwerp, KU Leuven and CORE); NYS Annemie, (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | We study the problem of making interpersonal well-being comparisons when individuals have heterogeneous possibly incomplete preferences. We present a robust also incomplete criterion for well-being comparisons that states that one individual is better o than another one if the intersection between the extended upper contour set of the better off individual and the extended lower contour set of the worse off individual is empty. We implement the criterion in the consumption-health space using an online survey with 2,260 respondents in the United States to investigate how incomplete the resulting interpersonal well-being comparison is. To chart the contour sets of the respondents, we propose a new adaptive bisectional dichotomous choice (ABDC) procedure that is based on a limited number of dichotomous choices and some mild non-parametric assumptions on the preferences. While the ABDC procedure does not reject that the preferences of a large majority of the respondents satisfy these non-parametric assumptions, it has sufficient power to reject several standard parametric assumptions such as linearity or Cobb-Douglas preferences for an overwhelming number of respondents. Finally, we find that about one fifth of all pairs of respondents can be ranked in a robust way with the proposed criterion. A more complete version of the criterion is able to rank more than half of the pairs. |
| Keywords: | Interpersonal well-being comparisons, preferences, non-parametric |
| JEL: | D63 D71 |
| Date: | 2018–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2018021&r=hap |
| By: | Donna Feir (Department of Economics, University of Victoria); Rob Gillezeau (Department of Economics, University of Victoria); Maggie Jones (Department of Economics, University of Victoria) |
| Abstract: | There are over 1,000 First Nations and Inuit communities in Canada. Only 357 of these communities are consistently included in the most comprehensive public data source on economic activity, the Community Well-Being (CWB) Database. We propose using nighttime light density measured by satellites as an alternative indicator of well-being. We show that nighttime light density is an effective proxy for per capita income in the Canadian context and provide evidence that existing publicly available databases on well-being consist of heavily selected samples that systematically exclude many of the least developed communities. We show that sample selection into the publicly available data can lead to incorrect conclusions based on three applications: (i) the comparison of well-being across community types over time; (ii) an analysis of the historical and geographic determinants of economic activity in Indigenous communities; and (iii) a study of the effects of mining intensity close to Indigenous communities. Based on these applications, we suggest that using nighttime light density overcomes the biased selection of communities into the publicly available samples and, thus, may present a more complete picture of economic activity in Canada for Indigenous peoples. JEL Classification: I15, J15,J24 |
| Keywords: | light density,nighttime light density,Indigenous peoples,economic development,community well-being index |
| Date: | 2018–09–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vic:vicddp:1806&r=hap |
| By: | Matthieu Crozet; Laura Hering; Sandra Poncet |
| Abstract: | China's increased export capacity in recent decades has disrupted developed-country labor markets and the well-being of workers exposed to foreign competition. We here attempt to complete the assessment of the social and human consequences of globalization by exploring the other side of this "China syndrome". We evaluate the extent to which increased export opportunities have influenced well-being in China using panel data on approximately 25,000 adults across 122 Chinese localities in 2010, 2012 and 2014. The results show that perceived life satisfaction rises significantly as local export markets grow. This effect goes beyond higher local GDP per capita and individual incomes. |
| Keywords: | Happiness;Well-being;Globalization;China |
| JEL: | I31 J28 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2018-14&r=hap |