Happiness economics

Abstract

There is enough evidence to be confident that individuals are able and willing to provide a meaningful answer when asked to value on a finite scale their satisfaction with their own lives, a question that psychologists have long and often posed to respondents of large questionnaires. Without taking its limitations and criticisms too lightly, some economists have been using this measure of self-reported satisfaction as a proxy for utility so as to contribute to a better understanding of individuals' tastes and hopefully behavior. By means of satisfaction questions we can elicit information on individual likes and dislikes over a large set of relevant issues, such as income, working status and job amenities, the risk of becoming unemployed, inflation, and health status. This information can be used to evaluate existing ideas from a new perspective, understand individual behavior, evaluate and design public policies, study poverty and inequality, and develop a preference based valuation method. In this article I first critically assess the pros and cons of using satisfaction variables, and then discuss its main applications.

Information technologies and subjective well-being: does the Internet raise material aspirations?

“…As for the variables included in the interaction term, we need to take into account that in non-linear models, the calculation of the marginal interaction effect is not straightforward (Ai and Norton 2003). We finally assume observations to be independent across countries, but account for the possibility of correlated error terms within countries by clustering standard errors on the country level in 14 We thus build on the presumption that reported satisfaction scores convey some information about utility, an assumption commonly made in both the theoretical and empirical happiness literature on the grounds that life satisfaction statements and economic decision-making are highly correlated (e.g., Van Praag 2011;Clark et al 2008;Frey and Stutzer 2002;Kahneman et al 2004;Ferrer-i-Carbonell 2012;Clark and Oswald 1996;Van Praag 2011;Benjamin et al 2012). …”

Workplace environmental conditions and life satisfaction in Spain

“…With the same database, Rehdanz 2 Recent surveys of the relationship between economic factors and SWB are Bruni and Porta (2007), Di Tella and McCulloch (2006), Frey and Stutzer (2002) and MacKerron (2012). Other studies explicitly consider environmental conditions affecting SWB (Di Tella and MuCulloch, 2008;Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2013). Surveys exclusively devoted to reviewing the literature on the relationship between environmental conditions and SWB are Welsch (2009), Welsch andKühling (2009) and Welsch and Ferreira (2014 and Maddison (2005) explain differences in self-reported levels of happiness using climate variables (temperature and precipitation), finding that higher mean temperatures in the colder months increase happiness, while higher mean temperatures in the hotter months decrease happiness, with precipitation not being a significant factor.…”

Evaluación de las pérdidas laborales provocadas enfermedades y lesiones en España en el año 2009

“…En primer lugar, es un bien valorado por la propia utilidad o bienestar que directamente aporta. Aunque disfrutar de una buena salud no es condición suficiente para alcanzar o mantener un alto grado de bienestar y felicidad, en términos generales sí es condición necesaria, como se ha demostrado en diversos trabajos sobre determinantes de la felicidad y satisfacción con la vida (Blanchflower et al, 2011;Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2013;Graham, 2008). En segundo lugar, la salud es un componente fundamental del capital humano de las personas y las naciones.…”