|
on Economics of Happiness |
|
Issue of 2026–08–31
eight papers chosen by Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca |
| By: | Sinikka Parviainen; William Pyle |
| Abstract: | Measuring politically sensitive attitudes in authoritarian settings is difficult because expressions of political support may reflect repression and social pressure as much as genuine belief. We propose a complementary approach: using responses to questions that are not themselves politically sensitive to provide indirect evidence about politically sensitive attitudes. Using subjective well-being (SWB), we ask whether within-person changes in life satisfaction, after accounting for changes in material and personal circumstances, can provide evidence of incorporation into a wartime national project. Drawing on more than a decade of panel data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (2013--2024), we find that life satisfaction rises significantly following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Gains are initially larger among ethnic Russians and smaller in Moscow and St. Petersburg, consistently larger in military-industrial regions, and sharply lower among those nearest the front. This theoretically patterned heterogeneity is difficult to reconcile with generalized social-desirability bias and is consistent with differentiated wartime incorporation. By 2024, rising non-response and attenuating subgroup differences suggest that the informational value of SWB may deteriorate over time. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being, rally-round-the-flag, Russia-Ukraine war, preference falsification, authoritarian public opinion, social desirability bias |
| JEL: | C8 D7 F5 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12898 |
| By: | Belcher, Richard; Fecht, Daniela; Weale, Martin |
| Abstract: | This paper explores whether it is possible to use the well-being data collected in the survey Understanding Society to produce estimates of the cost put on local air pollution or proximity to a main road and the value placed on proximity to green space. The conclusions are rather negative. Calculations based on the 2012/13 wave point and the 2016/17 wave give very different answers, and a differences in differences approach shows no significant environmental effect. In the near term it seems unlikely that this approach could form a basis for the inclusion of environmental influences in measures of local well-being. |
| Keywords: | Measures of Well-being; Environmental Costs and Benefits; Small-area Statistics |
| JEL: | I31 Q51 |
| Date: | 2025–10–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2025-14 |
| By: | C. P. Barrington-Leigh |
| Abstract: | The dispersion of self-reported life satisfaction has been proposed and used as a comprehensive measure of societal inequality. A negative cross-country association between mean life satisfaction and its standard deviation has been read as evidence that this inequality is itself welfare-relevant, but critics have pointed to the nonlinearity and boundedness of response scales. I describe a further problem: a substantial and predictable share of respondents simplify the 0--10 scale to the subset {0, 5, 10} --- "focal-value rounding" (FVR) --- a behaviour that breaks not only linearity of the scale but even its order. I derive a sharp bound on the bias that FVR can induce in the standard-deviation; at empirically-typical FVR fractions the possible bias is roughly half the cross-country range of dispersion. I estimate and correct for the bias by fitting a model of FVR behavior to the Gallup World Poll Cantril ladder and three other multi-country life evaluations. FVR inflates measured standard deviation in 133 of 135 countries, by a median of 0.090 points. However, because the corrections are nearly uniform in sign across countries, rankings of the standard deviation survive essentially intact. The ordinal inequality indices advocated as the theoretically appropriate alternative suffer even worse from FVR. The correlation between mean and standard deviation survives FVR correction with modest attenuation and some caveats. Thus FVR does not, by itself, overturn previously reported correlations; it does, however, add a further reason for caution in interpreting scalar measures of subjective wellbeing inequality: candidate statistics are differently contaminated, the ordinal repairs no less than the cardinal originals, and they disagree with one another. Lastly, I show that FVR-correction can improve the pairwise dominance-comparability of full distributions. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.12667 |
| By: | Louis Fréget; Ariell Reshef; Claudia Senik |
| Abstract: | Generative AI is increasingly promoted as a remedy for loneliness. We test this claim in a large-scale pre-registered experiment on a large sample of French adults. Participants assigned to treatment were asked to hold at least one personal conversation a day with a generative AI tool of their choice for 28 days; the control group continued as usual. The intervention raised socio-emotional AI use substantially. This led to an increase in subjective loneliness, a decline in life satisfaction, and a rise in depressive affect and in objective isolation, with more dinners taken alone. The effects are consistently adverse across outcome categories. |
| Keywords: | personal AI conversations, generative AI, subjective well-being, loneliness, social connectedness |
| JEL: | C93 I31 I12 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12882 |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower; Alex Bryson; Anthony Lepinteur; Alan Piper |
| Abstract: | A substantial literature finds poor mental health is hump-shaped with respect to age, whilst subjective wellbeing is U-shaped. Recent cross-sectional studies indicate a change in this relationship driven by the declining mental health of the young. We contribute to this literature by re-examining the age patterns in subjective wellbeing and illbeing for individuals in five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden). We do so with fifteen waves of the COME-HERE (CH) panel survey for 2020-2025 plus data from the Global Minds (GM) surveys of 2020-2026 for the same countries. We show that wellbeing rises and illbeing declines in a roughly monotonic fashion with age. This is found both with cross-section data from the CH and GM data, and from longitudinal plots of person fixed effects by age in the CH data. |
| Keywords: | subjective wellbeing; mental health; age; despair; panel data |
| JEL: | I31 I38 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26200 |
| By: | Grilli, Joseph; Schreyer, Paul; Zwijnenburg, Jorrit |
| Abstract: | We develop a framework to measure changes in material wellbeing defined as real market consumption plus government-provided Social Transfers in Kind across income groups, consistent with the System of National Accounts. Applying this framework to eleven OECD countries, we find that Social Transfers in Kind matter for evolution of material living standards, albeit with significant differences between countries and income groups. Across countries, no clear income gradient can be found in the evolution of material well-being. However, the cost-of-living, both adjusted and unadjusted for Social Transfers in Kind, has tended to rise faster for low-income households. Significant gaps in deflators for these transfers highlight a key measurement challenge. |
| Keywords: | National Income and Product Accounts; Consumption; Welfare; Well-Being; Living Standards |
| JEL: | D14 E01 I31 |
| Date: | 2026–02–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2026-01 |
| By: | Andrew Sharpe; Paul Pietraru |
| Abstract: | This report provides estimates for the Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB) for Canada for the 1981-2023 period. The IEWB is a composite measure developed by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards that assesses the economic well-being of Canadians through the lens of consumption flows, stocks of wealth, economic equality, and economic security. The report finds that the IEWB increased in Canada at a compound annual growth rate of 0.62 per cent between 1981 and 2023, well below that of GDP per capita (1.12 per cent). The rise was driven by increased consumption and stocks of wealth. Both economic equality and especially economic security declined and thus hindered advancement in the index. |
| Keywords: | Index of Economic Well-Being, IEWB, well-being, consumption flows, wealth, economic equality, economic security, provinces |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sls:resrep:2505 |
| By: | Kshitiz Shrestha (International Center for Public Policy, Georgia State University); Hyojung Kang (International Center for Public Policy, Georgia State University); Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (International Center for Public Policy, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | Inclusive growth has emerged as a central concept in both academic research and development policy, yet the literature remains fragmented across definitions, dimensions, and measurement approaches. This paper provides a comprehensive and critical review of the inclusive growth literature, tracing its conceptual evolution from pro-poor growth origins to its current multidimensional interpretation. It synthesizes the key dimensions that emerge consistently across definitions and identifies four core components of inclusive growth - sustained economic growth as a necessary foundation, equitable access to opportunities, broad sharing of growth's benefits, and multidimensional well-being and environmental sustainability. The paper also reviews and evaluates principal approaches used to measure inclusive growth against a common set of principles drawn from the literature. In addition, it situates inclusive growth within the broader post-growth debate, engaging with frameworks that questions the role of economic growth for long-run human welfare. While post-growth perspectives offer valuable normative insights, inclusive growth remains a practical and policy-relevant framework given its ability to incorporate growth while explicitly addressing distributional and welfare concerns. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper2627 |