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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2022‒08‒08
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Mehdi EL HERRADI; Aurélien LEROY |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses whether monetary policy announcements have an impact on households’ (subjective) well-being by analysing life satisfaction on the days before and after monetary surprises in Germany. To do so, we use individual-level information on life satisfaction from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) survey and identify the day on which each answer is submitted to the survey. We also exploit the Euro Area Monetary Policy event study Database (EA-MPD) to obtain daily-level information on European Central Bank (ECB) monetary surprises. Our results show that life satisfaction is significantly affected by monetary policy surprises: tightening surprises decrease life satisfaction, while easing surprises increase it. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy, Subjective Well-Being, Survey data, European Central Bank |
| JEL: | E52 E58 I31 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:bdxewp:2022-09&r= |
| By: | Mattia Guerini (University of Brescia, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d'Azur and Institute of Economics, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies); Fabio Vanni (Università degli Studi dell'Insubria, GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d'Azur and Institute of Economics, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies); Mauro Napoletano (GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d'Azur, Sciences Po, OFCE, SKEMA Business School and Institute of Economics, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies) |
| Abstract: | Is aggregate income enough to summarize the well-being of a society? We address this longstanding question by exploiting a novel approach to study the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) and a set of economic, social and environmental indicators for nine developed economies. By employing dimensionality reduction techniques, we quantify the share of variability stemming from a large set of different indicators that can be compressed into a univariate index. We also evaluate how well this variability can be explained if the univariate index is GDP. Our results indicate that univariate measures, and GDP among them, are doomed to fail in accounting for the variability of well-being indicators. Even if GDP would be the best linear univariate index, its quality in synthesizing information from indicators belonging to different domains is poor. Our approach provides additional support for policy makers interested in measuring the trade offs between income and other relevant socio-economic and ecological dimensions. Furthermore, it adds new quantitative evidence to the already vast literature criticizing GDP as the most prominent measure of well-being. |
| Keywords: | Gross domestic product, well-being indicators, data reduction techniques, principal component analysis, random matrix |
| JEL: | C43 I30 I31 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2022.15&r= |
| By: | Xu, Tao; Zhu, Weiwei |
| Abstract: | The traditional way of the "troika" cannot support sustainable development for China, and future economic growth should be pushed by entrepreneurship, which can be the key to innovation. The paper analyses the importance and necessity of entrepreneurship in the context of China and its current situation systematically, and methodically studies whether it is entrepreneurs or employees that social attitudes encourage citizens to become. Using Chinese General Social Survey data, the paper explores the essentiality of social attitudes from three perspectives: social equity, social happiness and social trust that can reflect the social atmosphere, and examines the influential factors in terms of personal characteristics through an empirical approach. The paper finds that citizens' feelings and perceptions of social equity and social happiness have a significant positive impact on encouraging them to be entrepreneurs, with positive factors such as income, social security and children, and negative factors such as education, political identity and hukou. The effect can be more significant for urban citizens than rural ones; men and women are affected differently by the same factors in their choice to become employees or entrepreneurs. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Social Attitude; Equity; Happiness; Social Atmosphere; Chinese General Social Survey |
| JEL: | J1 J12 J13 J16 M1 M13 M14 M2 O1 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2022–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113212&r= |
| By: | Alezra, Dylan; Flèche, Sarah; Beasley, Elysabeth; Perona, Mathieu; Senik, Claudia |
| Abstract: | Nous connaissons les enquêtes PISA pour la comparaison qu’elles permettent des performances scolaires entre pays. Ces enquêtes apportent cependant aussi un éclairage remarquable sur le bien-être des adolescents interrogés, et en particulier sur les liens que celui-ci entretien avec les performances scolaires. Nous montrons ici que ce lien est complexe. Si les adolescents qui ont de meilleures notes se déclarent plus satisfaits de leur vie, il n’y a pratiquement pas de relation entre le sentiment d’appartenance à l’école et le niveau de performance, et même une relation négative entre les notes et le sentiment de savoir ce qui donne du sens à sa vie. Les réponses mettent en évidence un écart fille-garçon très marqué. Les filles sont moins satisfaites de leur vie que les garçons, avec un poids plus important des notes, se sentent moins bien à l’école et déclarent plus souvent éprouver des émotions négatives. Une partie de cet écart semble lié à la peur de l’échec, plus fort chez les filles, et à un moindre esprit de compétition dans un environnement où celui-ci est valorisé. Dans toutes ces dimensions, la France ne fait pas figure d’exception et ressemble beaucoup aux autres pays européens. Deux spécificités françaises émergent cependant. D’une part, le poids accordé aux mathématiques dans le parcours scolaire se reflète dans l’importance de cette matière dans la satisfaction de vie. D’autre part, la satisfaction dans la vie des adultes, assez décevante au regard des pays comparables, contraste avec les réponses nettement plus favorables des adolescents. |
| Keywords: | Wellbeing, bien-être, France, enseignement, école, collège, PISA |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:notobe:2103&r= |