The drivers of happiness inequality: suggestions for promoting social cohesion

Becchetti, Leonardo; Massari, Riccardo; Naticchioni, Paolo

doi:10.1093/oep/gpt016

Cited by 70 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Should we then conclude that the change in happiness inequality is totally independent of income, as suggested by Stevenson and Wolfers (2008b), Dutta and Foster (2011) and Becchetti et al (2011)? We answer by running a RIF regression of the standard deviation of 9 See also Layard et al (2010) for the United States.…”

Section: The Role Of Income Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Great Happiness Moderation

Clark

Flèche

Senik

2014

Happiness and Economic Growth

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. AbstractThis paper shows that within-country happiness inequality has fallen in the majority of countries that have experienced positive income growth over the last forty years, in particular in developed countries. This new stylized fact comes as an addition to the Easterlin paradox, which states that the time trend in average happiness is flat during episodes of long-run income growth. This mean-preserving declining spread in happiness comes about via falls in both the share of individuals who declare low and high levels of happiness. Rising income inequality moderates the fall in happiness inequality, and may even reverse it after some point, for example in the US starting in the 1990s. Hence, if raising the income of all does not raise the happiness of all, it will at least harmonize the happiness of all, providing that income inequality does not grow too much. Behind the veil of ignorance, lower happiness inequality would certainly be considered as attractive by risk-averse individuals.

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Section: The Role Of Income Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This includes Stevenson and Wolfers (2008b), Ovaska and Takashima (2010), Dutta and Foster (2011) and Becchetti et al (2011). Stevenson and Wolfers (2008b) and Dutta and Foster (2011) (Stevenson and Wolfers, 2008b, p.S34).…”

Section: Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Great Happiness Moderation

Clark

Flèche

Senik

2014

Happiness and Economic Growth

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“…While it is possible that individuals measure life satisfaction in different latent scales, empirical work using vignettes (Beegle et al 2009;Clark et al 2012a and references therein) has found little evidence of reporting bias, in practice-this has also been corroborated using different approaches in recent work by Oswald and Wu (2009) and Oswald and De Neve (2012). Grounded on this evidence, the existing applied work on inequality in life satisfaction (Stevenson and Wolfers 2008;Becchetti et al 2011;Clark et al 2012a) also relies on this type of (uncorrected) measures. 25 For simplicity, this approach is also followed here.…”

Section: Latent Types Stochastic Dominance Conditions and Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical definition of social types in the analysis of inequality of opportunity: a latent classes approach

2014

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The empirical analysis of inequality of opportunity centres on disparities between social types, defined by the exposure to circumstances beyond individual control. Despite this, its main theoretical foundation-the Roemer model-does not indicate how to carry out, in practice, the required partition of the population into such types. This paper operationalises this definition of social types using a latent classes approach. Our specification is embedded in a probabilistic extension of the canonical Roemer model, which assumes that the relevant population consists of a finite number of latent types, from which each individual can be treated as a random draw. This makes possible the use of the full set of circumstances in the data, allows for unobserved individual heterogeneity and does not require an ex-ante specification of the number of types by the researcher. Our approach is illustrated by an empirical application featuring a large UK cohort study that was used in earlier literature to examine inequalities of opportunity in a wide array of social outcomes.

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“…Starting from the mid1990s, the evolution has either been described as trendless fluctuation (Clark et al 2016) or, less persuasively, as showing a slight increase in inequality (Becchetti et al 2013). What seems undisputed is that the 1990s saw a break in the downward trend towards less inequality in subjective well-being.…”

Section: The Link Between Economic Inequality and Life Satisfactionmentioning

confidence: 99%