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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2025–06–30
three papers chosen by Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca |
| By: | Song, Younghwan (Union College) |
| Abstract: | Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone’s life, the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 increases exponentially with age. Using data from the 2013 and 2021 American Time Use Survey Well-Being Modules, this paper examines how various measures of subjective well-being have changed during the pandemic among two age groups in the United States: individuals aged 15 to 44 and those aged 45 to 85. The measures of subjective well-being include life evaluation and activity-level subjective well-being measures: happiness, pain, sadness, stress, tiredness, and meaningfulness. The results indicate younger people felt less happy, more stressed, and less tired during the pandemic because their time use patterns, such as activity types, timing, and with whom, changed. However, there was no change in the life evaluation of the younger group. The older group felt more pain, sadder, and less meaningful during the pandemic, even after controlling for their health status and time use patterns, perhaps because they had lost many family members and friends to COVID-19. Their life evaluation increased during the pandemic, maybe because they began to better appreciate their life after the deaths of many people around them. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being, COVID-19, death, Cantril ladder |
| JEL: | I10 I31 J14 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17915 |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; Nicińska, Anna; Rosello-Roig, Melcior |
| Abstract: | Past trauma resulting from personal life shocks, especially during periods of particular volatility such as regime transition (or regime change), can give rise to significant long-lasting effects on people’s health and well-being. We study this question by drawing on longitudinal and retrospective data to examine the effect of past exposure to major individual-level shocks (specifically hunger, persecution, dispossession, and exceptional stress) on current measures of an individual’s health and mental well-being. We examine the effect of the timing of the personal shocks, alongside the additional effect of ‘institutional uncertainty’ resulting from regime change in post-communist European countries. Our findings are as follows. First, we document evidence of the detrimental effects of shocks on a series of relevant health and well-being outcomes. Second, we show evidence of more pronounced detrimental consequences of such personal shocks experienced by individuals living in formerly communist countries (which accrue to about 8% and 10% in the case of persecution and hunger, respectively) than in non-communist countries. The effects are robust and take place in addition to the direct effects of regime change and exposure to personal shocks. |
| Keywords: | later life health; health care system; transition shocks; Soviet communism |
| JEL: | I18 H75 H79 |
| Date: | 2025–07–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127573 |
| By: | Budría, Santiago (Universidad Nebrija); Betancourt-Odio, Alejandro (Universidad Pontificia Comillas); Fonseca, Marlene (Universidad Nebrija) |
| Abstract: | Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of weather-related natural disasters. These events generate significant monetary and non-monetary costs, undermining individual and societal well-being. Using a nationally representative longitudinal dataset from Australia, this study explores the dynamics of well-being before, during, and after natural disasters, with a particular focus on the mediating role of social capital. We employ an event-study design with individual fixed effects to capture both immediate and long-term effects of natural disasters on four critical dimensions of well- being: financial satisfaction, safety satisfaction, mental health, and psychological distress. Our findings reveal that the adverse impacts of natural disasters are profound and long-lasting, persisting in some cases for over 6–7 years, with well-being implications exceeding $1, 500, 000 in equivalent losses. We find that social capital emerges as a powerful buffer, significantly mitigating declines in safety satisfaction and mental health while reducing psychological distress both during and after disasters. |
| Keywords: | well-being, panel fixed-effects, hedonic adaptation, mental health, psychological distress |
| JEL: | J21 I31 G50 C23 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17907 |