Happiness and Life Satisfaction (2017)

1. Particularly important was the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission. It also relates to Bhutan’s famous measurement of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as indicator of progress (Wikipedia here).

2. To be precise, in 27 out of 31 countries with data spanning longer than one decade, the estimate for 2016 is higher than the earliest available estimate.

3. In some cases, the underlying data had multiple average estimates for the same territory (e.g. Baden and Württemberg were treated as different entities). In these cases the map shows the average between these two observations. Details can be found in this file

4. Petrunyk, I., & Pfeifer, C. (2016). Life satisfaction in Germany after reunification: Additional insights on the pattern of convergence. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 236(2), 217-239.

5. The GSS asks people a very similar question to the World Value Survey: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?”

6. Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers. “Happiness inequality in the United States.” The Journal of Legal Studies 37.S2 (2008): S33-S79. An ungated earlier version of the paper is available here.

7. These results have been discussed in various blogs. Freakonomics provides a quick and interesting overview of the debate, specifically with regard to gender gaps.

8. Clark, Andrew E., Sarah Flèche, and Claudia Senik. “Economic growth evens out happiness: Evidence from six surveys.” Review of Income and Wealth (2015). An ungated earlier version of the paper is available here

9. To be precise, the gradients correspond, country by country, to the regression coefficients between income quintiles and the related average life satisfaction reported by people within each income quintile.

10. Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic growth and subjective well-being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1-87. An earlier version is available online here.

11. The dataset includes observations for Egypt. However, we have excluded these observations from our analysis. This is because the survey for Egypt in the wave labeled 2014 is from 2012, which was a year characterized by extreme political instability in that country.

12. R.A. Easterlin and L. Angelescu – ‘Modern Economic Growth and Quality of Life: Cross-Sectional and Time Series Evidence’ in Land, Michalos, and Sirgy (ed.) (2011) – Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research. Springer.

13. Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic growth and subjective well-being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1-87. An earlier version is available online here.

14. Chart from Stevenson B, Wolfers J (2008) – Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Brookings Paper Econ Activ 2008 (Spring):1–87. Underlying data source: Life in Nation surveys, 1958–2007. Note from the authors: “The series in each of the four panels reports responses to a different life satisfaction question, and therefore comparisons should be made only within each panel. GDP per capita is at purchasing power parity in constant 2000 international dollars.”

15. Koivumaa‐Honkanen, H., Honkanen, R., Antikainen, R., Hintikka, J., Laukkanen, E., Honkalampi, K., & Viinamäki, H. (2001). Self‐reported life satisfaction and recovery from depression in a 1‐year prospective study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 103(1), 38-44. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2001.00046.x.

16. Gehricke, J. G., & Shapiro, D. (2000). Reduced facial expression and social context in major depression: discrepancies between facial muscle activity and self-reported emotion. Psychiatry Research, 95(2), 157-167. Available at: http://www.psy-journal.com/article/S0165-1781(00)00168-2/abstract.

17. Clark, A. E., Diener, E., Georgellis, Y., & Lucas, R. E. (2008). Lags and leads in life satisfaction: A test of the baseline hypothesis. The Economic Journal, 118(529).

18. Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36(8), 917. Chicago. Available online here.

19. Oswald, A. J., & Powdthavee, N. (2008). Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges. Journal of public economics, 92(5), 1061-1077.

20. Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2009). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and life satisfaction. Oxford handbook of positive psychology, 2, 187-194.

21. To be precise, the Gallup World Poll asks: “In this country, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?”

22. Inglehart, R., Foa, R., Peterson, C., & Welzel, C. (2008). Development, freedom, and rising happiness: A global perspective (1981–2007). Perspectives on psychological science, 3(4), 264-285.

23. Johnston, W. M., & Davey, G. C. (1997). The psychological impact of negative TV news bulletins: The catastrophizing of personal worries. British Journal of Psychology, 88(1), 85-91.

24. Combs, B., & Slovic, P. (1979). Newspaper coverage of causes of death. Journalism Quarterly, 56(4), 837-849.

25. Riddle (2010), for example, found that people watching more vivid violent media gave higher estimates of the prevalence of crime in the real world. (Riddle, 2010, “Always on my mind: Exploring how frequent, recent, and vivid television portrayals are used in the formation of social reality judgments.” Media Psychology.)

26. Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A. B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. The journal of economic perspectives, 20(1), 3-24.

27. Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell, A., & Frijters, P. (2004). How important is methodology for the estimates of the determinants of happiness?. The Economic Journal, 114(497), 641-659.

28. Van Praag, B.M.S. (1991). ‘Ordinal and cardinal utility: an integration of the two dimensions of the welfare concept’, Journal of Econometrics, vol. 50, pp. 69–89.

29. Sutin, A. R., Terracciano, A., Milaneschi, Y., An, Y., Ferrucci, L., & Zonderman, A. B. (2013). The effect of birth cohort on well-being The legacy of economic hard times. Psychological science, 0956797612459658.

30. Sandvik, E., Diener, E. and Seidlitz, L. (1993). ‘Subjective well-being: the convergence and stability of self and non self report measures’, Journal of Personality, vol. 61, pp. 317–42. Diener, E. and Lucas, R.E. (1999). ‘Personality and subjective well-being’, in Kahneman et al. (1999) chapter 11.

31. Scollon, C. N., Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2004). Emotions across cultures and methods. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 35(3), 304-326.

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