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Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox
Open accessAbstract
The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society's economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive link between average levels of subjective well-being and GDP per capita across countries, and find no evidence of a satiation point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective well-being. We show that the estimated relationship is consistent across many datasets and is similar to the relationship between subject well-being and income observed within countries. Finally, examining the relationship between changes in subjective well-being and income over time within countries we find economic growth associated with rising happiness. Together these findings indicate a clear role for absolute income and a more limited role for relative income comparisons in determining happiness.
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Veenhoven, R. (1991) · Social Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/bf00292648 · Cited by 1,358
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- All observations: Columns 2 and 4 include all country-waves, including non-nationally representative samples described in this appendix. This broader sample yields an extra 25,582 satisfaction respondents (and 26,365 happiness respondents), from 17 (18) more country-waves, adding 1, 7, 7, and 2 countries to the satisfaction (and 1, 7, 8, and 2 to the happiness) samples, respectively, in waves 1-4), yielding 13 (14) more short first differences and 6 (7) more long first differences and resulting in a total sample of 82 countries. Results in the middle panel 2 also require household income data, and so the broader sample yielded only 9,968 extra satisfaction respondents (and 9,946 extra happiness respondents), from 6 country-waves for a total of 61 countries. Panel 1: National well-being index is regressed on log real GDP per capita. The well-being index is calculated in a previous ordered probit regression of well-being on country � wave fixed effects. Standard errors are clustered by country. See the notes to table 1 for further details. Panel 2: Results of ordered probit regressions of respondent-level well-being on log household income, controlling for country fixed effects, or country � wave fixed effects plus a quartic in age, gender, their interaction, and indicators for missing age or sex. See notes to table 2 for details. Panel 3: National well-being index is regressed on log real GDP per capita, Notes: Table reports results of regressions of well-being on the indicated income variable, both in the nationally-representative World Values Survey samples analyzed in the main text and in the entire sample. Numbers in parentheses are robust standard errors. Asterisks indicate statistically significant from zero at the *10 percent, **5 percent, and ***1 percent level
- 1946, Yugoslavia; data from the Philippines are missing. Data for the United States were tabulated from the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research. Surveys were run from 1957 to 1963 using Cantril's "Self-Anchoring Striving Scale," which probes about the best and worst possible futures, then shows a picture of a ten-step ladder and asks, Figure 1. Early Cross-Country Surveys of Subjective Well-Being Notes: Well-being data are aggregated into an index by running an ordered probit regression of happiness or satisfaction on country fixed effects separately for each survey. Income data were extracted from Maddison (2007) and reflect estimates of real GDP per capita at purchasing power parity in 1990 U.S. dollars. Dashed lines are fitted from OLS regressions of this well-being index on log GDP. Country abbreviations in all figures are standard ISO country codes. Gallup
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Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan *
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Metadata
- Authors
- Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J.
- Venue
- SSRN Electronic Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008
- ISSN
- 1556-5068 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2741872151
- Cited by
- 519
- References
- 1
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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