Happiness, Economy and Institutions

By Bruno S. Frey, Alois Stutzer. Social Science Research Network, 2000

1,757 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Institutional factors in the form of direct democracy (via initiatives and referenda) and federal structure (local autonomy) systematically and sizeably raise self-reported individual well-being in a cross-regional econometric analysis. This positive effect can be attributed to political outcomes closer to voters' preferences, as well as to the procedural utility of political participation possibilities. Moreover, the results of previous microeconometric well-being functions for other countries are generally supported. Unemployment has a strongly depressing effect on happiness. A higher income level raises happiness, however, only to a small extent.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e875798d0bcdd7e67be243230a8f7a2d5b4b6552

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Citations in the corpus

Does residents' perceived life satisfaction vary with tourist season? A two-step survey in a Mediterranean destination (2016, background): “According to theory and empirical results, there is a positive relationship between happiness and income and other material conditions (Frey and Stutzer, 2000, 2002).”
Beyond Outcomes: Measuring Procedural Utility (2002, background): “The results for these variables are discussed in Frey and Stutzer (2000) and are similar in size and direction to those found in other microeconomic happiness functions (see, e.g., Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004).”
Life satisfaction and economic conditions in East and West Germany pre- and post-unification (2008, background): “17 personal well-being (Easterlin 2000, Table 1), there is some cross sectional evidence suggesting that life satisfaction is positively associated with indicators of democracy (Frey and Stutzer 2000).”
Can the Large Swings in Russian Life Satisfaction be Explained by Ups and Downs in Real Incomes (2006, neutral): “…Stephan, 1996; Gerdtham and Johannesson, 1997; Korpi, 1997; Oswald, 1997; Theodossiou, 1998; Winkelmann and Winkelmann, 1998; Kahneman et al., 1999; Frey and Stutzer, 2000; Frijters, 2000; Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2001; Clark et al., 2001; Di Tella et al., 2001; McBride, 2001; Ravallion and…”
Marriage and Subjective Well-Being: How and Why Context Matters (2015, positive): “While most empirical work has found the influence of marriage on well-being to be similar for men and women (Frey and Stutzer 2000), some studies have suggested that the transition into marriage may benefit men more than women (Waite 1995; Wildman and Jones 2002).”
How important is methodology for the estimates of the determinants of happiness (2004, methodology): “2 For example Alesina et al. (2001), Blanchflower and Oswald (1998; 2000a), Clark and Oswald (1994), Frijters (2000), Di Tella et al. (2001), Frey and Stutzer (1999; 2000), Hartog and Oosterbeek (1998), Kenny (1999), Kahneman et al. (1999), Konow and Earley (1999), Oswald (1997), Winkelmann and…”
Will GDP Growth Increase Happiness in Developing Countries? (2011, background): “…and human rights, tolerance of out-groups, gender equality, on the one hand, and subjective well-being on the other hand (e.g. Barro 1997, Frey and Stutzer 2000, Inglehart and Welzel 2005, Schyns 1998, Inglehart et al. 2008). b. Time-series correlation between GDP growth and Quality of…”
Well-Being, Social Capital and Public Policy: What's New? (2006, positive): “For example, Frey and Stutzer (2000) found subjective well-being higher in Swiss cantons with more frequent consultations with their electors, and Chandler and Lalonde (1998) found that several measures of community-level self-government were associated with dramatically lower suicide rates among…”
Are there Geographical Variations in the Psychological Cost of Unemployment in South Africa? (2007, background): “…(Fryer and Payne, 1986; War et al., 1988; Clark and Oswald, 1994; Darity and Goldsmith, 1996; Theodossiou, 1998; Winkelmann and Winkelmann, 1998; Frey and Stutzer, 2000; Di Tella et al., 2003; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004) is that unemployment is significantly correlated with lower levels of…”
Exploring the economic and social determinants of psychological well‐being and perceived social support in England (2005, background): “Most European-based studies report a slight positive relationship between income and self-reported life satisfaction (e.g. Frey and Stutzer (2000), Frijters et al. (2004a), Gerdtham and Johannesson (2001), Gerlach and Stephan (1996) and Winkelmann and Winkelmann (1998)) and there is some evidence…”
Putting a price tag on friends, relatives, and neighbours: Using surveys of life satisfaction to value social relationships (2008, background): “…2003), to measure the review on the research progress in the last three decades of subjective wellbeing, see Diener et al (1999). effects of political institution (Frey and Stutzer, 2000), the impact of women’s rights (Pezzini, 2005), and the effects of crime (Powdthavee, 2005), on satisfaction.”
International Happiness: A New View on the Measure of Performance (2011, background): “Frey and Stutzer (2002) summarized ways to validate happiness data. Krueger and Schkade (2008) showed that people’s reported well-being numbers are reasonably stable through time. And Oswald and Wu (2010) demonstrated that across the United States there is a strong match between subjective and objec”
Social Capital, the Economy and Well-being (2001, background): “…indication from studies of high income earners (Diener et al. 1985) and from studies finding smaller increases in subjective well-being at higher income levels (Frey and Stutzer 2000) that 52 John F. Helliwell there are diminishing returns to higher income, even when measured in relative terms.”
Economic Disparities and Life Satisfaction in European Regions (2010, background): “As discussed in Ferrer-iCarbonell and Frijters (2004) and Frey and Stutzer (2002), ordinality or cardinality of life satisfaction scores makes little difference, so the use of ordered logit models or linear models is not expected to change the substantive findings.”