"There is increasing interest in the “economics of happiness”, reflected by the number of articles that are appearing in mainstream economics journals that consider subjective well-being (SWB) and its determinants. This paper provides a detailed review of this literature. It focuses on papers that have been published in economics journals since 1990, as well as some key reviews in psychology and important unpublished working papers. The evidence suggests that poor health, separation, unemployment and lack of social contact are all strongly negatively associated with SWB. However, the review highlights a range of problems in drawing firm conclusions about the causes of SWB; these include some contradictory evidence, concerns over the impact on the findings of potentially unobserved variables and the lack of certainty on the direction of causality. We should be able to address some of these problems as more panel data become available."
Dolan et al. (2008)
2 comments:
Also good:a brief history of experienced utility
It's no harm to point out that the answer Bertrand and Mullainathan find to the question "Do people mean what they say?" (in the paper of the same name) is that they do as they are saying it, but their answers are sensitive to how it is asked - framing, context, ordering etc. For example, asking "how satisfied are you with your life all things considered?" before asking "how often do you normally go out on a date?" yields responses that are basically uncorrelated. But asking about dating prior to the life satisfaction question apparently prompts the respondent to focus on that domain and so in that formulation the two responses become highly correlated.
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