Insights on Development from the Economics of Happiness

By Carol Graham. 2005

187 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The literature on the economics of happiness in developed economies finds discrepancies between reported measures of well-being and income measures. One is the so-called Easterlin paradox: that average happiness levels do not increase as countries grow wealthier. This article explores how that paradox and survey research on reported wellbeing in general can provide insights into the gaps between standard measures of economic development and individual assessments of welfare. Analysis of research on reported wellbeing in Latin America and Russia finds notable discrepancies between respondent assessments of their own wellbeing and income or expenditure based measures. Accepting a wide margin for error in both types of measures, the article posits that taking such discrepancies into account may improve the understanding of development outcomes by providing a broader view on wellbeing than do income or expenditure based measures alone. It suggests particular areas where research on reported well-being has the most potential to contribute. Yet the article also notes that some interpretations of happiness research psychologist set point theory, in particular may be quite limited in their application to development questions and cautions against the direct translation of results of happiness surveys into policy recommendations.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9df2fbf882515f11f370578070ed135cbe231a15

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Citations in the corpus

Income, health, and well-being around the world: evidence from the Gallup World Poll. (2008, background): “Even if this conclusion is accepted — and for a somewhat different view see Graham (2005) — the satisfaction questions are clearly of interest in their own right, as is the analysis of their correlates.”
The Rural–Urban Divide in China: Income but Not Happiness? (2010, background): “It includes Graham and Pettinato ( 2002 ) and Graham ( 2005 ) on Peru and Russia; Ravallion and Lokshin ( 2001 , 2002) on Russia; Kingdon and Knight ( 2006 , 2007) on South Africa; and Fafchamps and Shilpi ( 2008 ) on Nepal.”
Types of Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth (2009, result): “This is reflected in the finding that in poor countries self-employed are less happy than employees, while the reverse is true in high income countries (Blanchflower and Oswald 1998; Graham 2005).”
Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle? (2008, unknown): “This sample is for the years 1997, 2000-2001 and 2003-2005, and, like Graham (2007), draws on the Latinobarometers.”
A test for the convexity of human well-being over the life cycle: Longitudinal evidence from a 20-year panel (2011, background): “Heathcote et al. (2005) find that estimations of the course of inequality over the life cycle can vary considerably under the assumption of either the absence of cohort effects or the absence of time effects.”
Relative Concerns of Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China (2012, background): “2See Graham and Pettinato (2002) on Peru and Russia; Kingdon and Knight (2006, 2007) and Bookwalter and Dalenberg (2010) on South Africa; Akay and Martinsson (2010) on Ethiopia; and Ravallion and Lokshin (2001, 2002) on Russia; see Graham (2005) for a helpful overview.”
International Happiness: A New View on the Measure of Performance (2011, background): “…and Whittington (2003), Wolfers (2003), Blanchflower and Oswald (2004, 2008a), Kahneman et al. (2004), Van Praag and Ferrer-I-Carbonell (2004), Graham (2005), Luttmer (2005), Steptoe, Wardle, and Marmot (2005), Gilbert (2006), Welsch (2006), Grant, Christianson , and Price (2007), Dolan,…”
Well-Being across America (2011, unknown): “Oswald (2004), Graham (2005), Oswald (1997), Sacker and Wiggins (2002), Van”
Life cycle happiness and its sources: Intersections of psychology, economics, and demography (2006, background): “Economists engaged in the recent upsurge of research on happiness uniformly acknowledge the importance of psychological factors in the explanation of well-being (Easterlin, 1995, 2001; Frey & Stutzer, 2002; Graham, 2005; Layard, 2005; Stutzer, 2003; Van Praag & Frijters, 1999; Van Praag & Ferrer-I”
Is Psychological Well-Being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables? (2012, unknown): “There is a still-burgeoning statistical literature on the determinants of human happiness and mental well-being (Diener et al. 1999; Easterlin 2003; Graham 2005; Layard 2005; Propper et al. 2005; Shields and Wheatley Price 2005; Blanchflower and Oswald 2008).”