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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2026–08–17
five papers chosen by Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca |
| By: | Bousselin, Audrey (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)); Sologon, Denisa (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)) |
| Abstract: | Adverse shocks can create inequalities if some groups respond more strongly than others. This paper examines whether a common disruption leads to differential changes in children’s subjective well-being by gender. We use longitudinal data from the Luxembourg Child Well-Being Survey, which follows the same children before (2019) and after (2021) the COVID-19 shock, a major disruption to schooling, social interactions, and daily routines. Using fixed-effects models, we estimate within-child changes in life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Girls and boys report similar levels of life satisfaction and positive affect before the disruption, but follow different trajectories afterward. Girls experience larger declines in life satisfaction and positive affect and a larger increase in negative affect, with the sharpest deteriorations concentrated in school experiences, family relationships, self-perceptions, and loneliness. As a result, a sizeable gender gap in subjective well-being emerge, which increases with age and remains robust to alternative specifications, selective attrition, and alternative cardinalizations of ordinal well-being scales. The gender gap is not concentrated among specific socio-economic groups. |
| Keywords: | child well-being, gender differences, socio-emotional development, shocks, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I31 I14 I21 J13 J16 D63 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18765 |
| By: | Lagakos, David; Michalopoulos, Stelios; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | What does it take to live a meaningful life? We exploit a unique corpus of over 1, 400 life narratives of older Americans collected by a team of writers during the 1930s. We combine detailed human readings with large language models (LLMs) to extract systematic information on critical junctures, sources of meaning, and overall life satisfaction. Under specific conditions, LLMs can provide responses to complex questions that are indistinguishable from those of human readers, effectively passing a version of the Turing Test. We find that sources of life meaning are more varied than previous research suggested, underlining the importance of work and community contributions in addition to family and close relationships (emphasized by earlier work). The narratives also highlight gendered disparities, with women disproportionately citing adverse family events, such as the loss of a parent, underscoring their role as keepers of the kin. Our research expands our understanding of human flourishing during a transformative period in American history and establishes a robust and scalable framework for exploring subjective well-being across diverse historical and cultural contexts. |
| Keywords: | Text analysis; Narratives; Life satisfaction |
| JEL: | I00 I31 N32 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19885 |
| By: | Abeeb Olaniran (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa); Talita Greyling (Centre for Well-being, Artificial Intelligence and Social Impact (C.WAIS) and School of Economics, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa); Christian Pierdzioch (Department of Economics, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | The European Union (EU) is one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is committed to being the first economic bloc to achieve a net-zero emissions balance. We examine the attendant implications of the shortfall of these emissions through climate-related risks on national well-being and happiness of selected countries that contribute the largest of the EU GHG emissions. We find strong evidence of a persistent diminishing effect of climate shocks on happiness, with physical-related shocks causing more havoc than transition-related shocks. Exploring the non-linear dynamics of these relationships, we find asymmetric effects of positive versus negative climate-related shocks, with positive shocks worse than negative in some countries, but inverted in others across both risk measures. Our findings offer valuable insights for governments and policymakers seeking to promote a socially just transition to a sustainable economy by highlighting the role of climate-related insurance as a key component of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. |
| Keywords: | Climate risks, National well-being, National happiness, European Union |
| JEL: | I31 O52 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:202621 |
| By: | Lui, Silvia; Rincon-Aznar, Ana |
| Abstract: | In this paper we derive new summary measures related to wellbeing in the UK using self-reported responses to the General Health Questions (GHQs) in the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), for the period 2009-2020. Our study makes three main empirical contributions. First, we provide a more complete picture of changes in wellbeing in the UK compared to most empirical studies. Second, we provide a detailed breakdown of the trends by examining twelve measures in different UK regions, with elements that are conventionally regarded as direct measures of wellbeing (e.g., general happiness), and other elements that more indirectly reflect the state of wellbeing (e.g., sleep, confidence). Third, we establish a method to quantify categorical responses accounting for the impact of individual-specific and regional factors. The resulting summary measure, in the form of adjusted balance statistics, is therefore expected to be more informative than simple aggregation. Our results show that wellbeing in the UK has followed a downward trend since 2014, both at the national and regional level, and for most of the dimensions. |
| Keywords: | Wellbeing; longitudinal data; summary measures |
| JEL: | C23 C25 I31 |
| Date: | 2024–08–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2024-09 |
| By: | Heys, Richard |
| Abstract: | It is an age-old debate in statistics and measurement: when to provide a relatively large number of series of data (a dashboard) to permit the user to extract a common signal themselves, and when to create an artificial ‘single-number’ index through some process of amalgamation or aggregation such that a single index provides a simple (some say oversimplified) line of sight for users on whether matters have improved, worsened, or stayed constant. This paper reflects on recent experience in the UK, in relation to four specific instances: the construction of Gross and Net Inclusive Income, the development of Public Service Productivity estimates, the National Wellbeing Dashboard and the creation of the Health Index to consider what these examples teach us, to consider how we can move forward in terms of when composite indices are valuable / useful and when they are not. The paper concludes that a composite index has value when the weights used to derive it represent societal preferences or a societal reflection of value, and reviews alternative approaches which have been proposed or implemented. |
| Keywords: | Composite indices; well-being; public services; productivity; GDP |
| JEL: | C65 D78 E01 I31 |
| Date: | 2024–12–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2024-18 |